[ LT Joshua Niles - Commanding Officer's Office - Front Ear Station ]

It had been some time since they had been forced to leave five of their people on Caldonia, ordered away rather than allowed to mount a rescue operation.  That particular state of affairs had not sat well with the Tactical Officer, and while he hadn't spoken against the decision from Starfleet Command, it hardly took a telepath to know that he had a serious problem with that call.  But he had followed the orders and kept his mouth shut...  and he had hated it.

But now that they'd returned to the Front Ear, between the odd need to serve as officer of the day on the Mac as she was down to anchor watch and his more limited duties on the station, he had plenty of time to himself, and he had expected one more day or reviewing reports and shipping forecasts when he had received an... invitation to meet with the Captain for brunch the next day.  Of course, it had been politely worded and included niceties such as 'if it would be convenient' and 'please', but there really was only one thing a fairly junior Lieutenant did when his Captain asked for the pleasure of his company one merry morning: one would make themselves as presentable as possible, get on their feet, and trot on over to be there right at the appointed time.  

Which he had done, and upon entering the office's antechamber, he was greeted by Mabel enjoying her share of the libations that had been brought forward.  "Good morning, Ms Henriksen.  The Captain is expecting me.  Should I make my way in, or wait to be called?"

For one thing, one Joshua Niles would be lying if he was not somewhat nervous at the purpose of this particular meeting...

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Tag Judith Eastman

[ LT Joshua Niles - Commanding Officer's Office - Front Ear Station ]

"Thank you," he simply replied when he was ushered towards the Captain's office and he paused before the door just long enough to straighten his jacket and ensure for the twelfth or fifteenth time that his shirt's zipper was firmly all the way up and the tab tucked in, and that his commbadge was perfectly straight.

Perhaps he was out of the Academy, but one of the few things that allowed one Joshua Niles to roll with the punches was his ability to fall back on protocol, regulations and propriety. With that standing behind him, it loaned him a degree of strength to supplement his own. And right now, that pretty much failed him as he was actually wondering what he was heading into.

Of course, food would be involved, but precisely what came with it would be a surprise to him.

Even though he was warmly greeted as the door hissed shut behind him. "Captain," he answered with a polite nod, and for a moment he considered whether or not he should avail himself to the spread as he had been invited to... and in the end the smell of the Old Lady's cooking won out. "Thank you, Ma'am," he replied before he made himself up a modest plate with both kinds of borekas and a lone hard-boiled egg for the time being.

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Tag Judith Eastman

[ LT Joshua Niles - Commanding Officer's Office - Front Ear Station ]

Well, being told he was not in real trouble was not particularly something Niles needed to hear. Intellectually, at least. After all, one did not invite a subordinate for brunch when one intended to tear them a new one or put them on report... or up on charges.

And now that he'd sat himself down with some food and the Captain served herself, she came at him with a seemingly innocuous question, but one that actually was weightier than it seemed at first glance.

How has he been? Well, he had settled in well in his role, he had finally managed to find some form of relaxation time... and it didn't take a mind reader to know that was hardly what the Captain meant. For he did remember being taken captive without so much as a chance to resist; he remembered being lumped in with Caldonia's jackbooted thugs and being ordered to leave their people behind, he remembered having to play nice with the Talorians without the ability to dispute their accusation that he'd been among those who callously murdered their people for no reason... and of course getting poisoned while out on bloody shore leave when a tonic had a nasty interaction with the cocktail of drugs that helped manage integration of his prosthetic arm.

"I'm not going to lie, I'm still digesting the last few months."

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Tag Judith Eastman

[ LT Joshua Niles - Commanding Officer's Office - Front Ear Station ]

There was something to the way the Captain spoke when she said he wasn't alone in still managing the events of the last few months; in fact, he was fairly certain that she too was having some issues in making sense of it all. And, truth be told, what was supposed to be a fairly quiet, end of nowhere posting had turned out to be anything but. And to think some of his classmates had intimated that he was being shuffled off somewhere out of the way while they drew plum assignments right after commissioning...

Well, according to the few messages they still exchanged, most were still Ensigns, only one had achieved their bridge officer's certification, and all were pretty much just little more than gophers for their superiors and complained about being firmly under the thumb of senior petty officers rather than being allowed to 'be officers'...

Well, looked like he did draw the lucky straw... and having had three months of transit time to be employed as an officer on a ship that had gotten short-handed had helped with that.

But the question as to how he'd been dealing with the strain, well, there were plenty of answers to give that would be true... And if he did lie, well, he had the clear impression that between her rank and experience, being a mother and having grandchildren there would be no getting anything past her, even lies of omission.

"Honestly? A lot of coarse language, the gym, hand to hand training simulations, some good whiskey, and second-guessing every move I made."

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Tag Judith Eastman

[ LT Joshua Niles - Commanding Officer's Office - Front Ear Station ]


The food, as usual, was excellent. It may have taken him months, but one Josh Niles had finally gotten his head around the notion that his Captain would always ensure her crew was as well-fed and well-rested as could be. That was certainly a notion to file away for later, given that his influence was limited to his bridge duties, and the tactical sections of the Security department.

As for a sounding board... yeah, the Captain was right: he was bouncing his doubts off of himself, and the old saying about hindsight always being perfect? That applied in spades.

"One of my old shipboard tactics instructors used to say that there's really no such thing as surprise; that there's what you knew was there all along but didn't recognize for what it was. And now, I'm wondering about all the damn things I've missed along the way. And there aren't many people I can bounce this off off. Commander Aune is also a veteran, but he has an entire department to worry about over a single Lieutenant who's second-guessing himself, and peers... I don't really have any I would trust with my issues, not yet."

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Tag Judith Eastman

[ LT Joshua Niles - Commanding Officer's Office - Front Ear Station ]

One thing Niles was not was arrogant enough to think himself omniscient, and one to make the right call every single time. He was after all only a mere mortal. But that didn't mean that when subjected to analysis, any decisions he made, anything that got past him, and their results, would have to be able to stand up to scrutiny. Which meant, he had to make damn as well sure that he could know as much as he humanly could as to make the very best calls...

"Captain, we are expected to hold lives in our hands. You even more so than me. Our own, those of our crew, the ones depending on us... isn't it our responsibility to minimize any kind of surprises we have to deal with? And in the final analysis, doesn't it usually come out that 'surprise' is really just missing a detail, more often than not?"

Of course, he did realize that not everything coming out of the Academy was to be taken as gospel, but how could something stressing attention to details and taking pains to not be blindsided was a bad thing?

Though what came next caught him with his fork in transit to his mouth, and when it stopped the bite of potato-stuffed pastry found its way back down to his plate, a victim of Newton's Second Law of Motion and law of of general gravitation. Slowly, he set down his the utensil, carefully as though he was not entirely sure of whether or not he was in full control of what he was doing, and his eyes went down to the food before him, before coming back up. "At first, I figured I really didn't have a choice. Young officer, not sure where he's standing with anyone, needing to be seen as dependable and professional by his superiors and respected by enlisted people who've been in Starfleet since before I left grade school... not many other ways to be, you know?"

His voice was low, a near-whisper. "But right now, I feel it's the one thing I can fall back on to keep myself together half the damn time." His tone quavered a little, as though his control over it was fraying. I know, up here," he said, tapping his temple, that we had no choice but to leave our people behind while just asking the Caldonians if they could please insult us more. To allow ourselves to be taken on Serenity. To play nice with those Talosian murderers while they still spout out about how we massacred their people out of hand."

He took a deep breath, clearly an attempt to maintain control over himself, but an effort that may not have been entirely effective. "I'm not going to lie, I'm not making a whole lot of effort to reach out to anyone. Because, damnit, that way I don't have to make them carry my weight, and I won't have to feel it as much when they're lost."

It would hardly take a telepath to realize just how much was boiling inside the Lieutenant...

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Tag Judith Eastman

[ LT Joshua Niles - Commanding Officer's Office - Front Ear Station ]

Part of him wanted to keep it together, to remain imperturbable in the face of what he'd been dealing with. Hell, most of him needed to.

He tried.

He failed.

And just as he realized it, he screwed his eyes shut and his left hand came up, clenching into a fist... and down hard upon to table's surface. But it was poorly aimed, if at all, and it was not the hard hammer of his fist that connected but his pinky finger instead; and 0t had come down hard enough that had it been his right hand, he well might have broken that finger all right. But instead, the only damage was a scrape in the synthetic covering, exposing the metal and polymer structure of his finger.

And to be told that she, too had broken down after the word had come down? That was.. a surprise. For one would never have expected their Captain to ever admit to being subject to the vagaries of being a mere mortal. Well, at least he would not have expected it.

"Five people we left on Caldonia. Captain, I trust you, and if you could have told us why we were ordered to leave them, assuming you were even told you would have told us. But leaving anyone behind for any reason, that's just wrong. It would have been bad enough to just abandon Starfleet personnel, who know that it might come to pass, but we also left civilians back there. I know they can handle themselves, but they're not... us. They never signed on for being at the mercy of the... requirements of the service."

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Tag Judith Eastman