#I think maybe a lot of non-STEM people hear engineering and think engineering = smart

[buzzfeedunsolvable]

No hate to Steven or anything and a lot of the flack he's gotten in the yt comments is unwarranted, but one thing I think is interesting is how on Watcher he was painted as a business-guru type and yet he was like... a chemical engineering major. Like so was I for most of college and you know what we never learned? How to run a business

[writesandramblings]

The Captain’s Secret - p.15

“Threat Assessment”

Full Chapter List Part 1 - Objects in Motion << 14 - All That Glitters 16 - Stay on Target >>

Given that the Triton had borne the brunt of the battle and was presently undergoing an extensive series of noncritical repairs, Georgiou invited Lorca to meet with her on the Shenzhou and provided a pair of engineering teams from the larger ship to assist with the efforts. The Triton had weathered the battle well all things considered but there were still a lot of small holes to patch, power relays to replace, and pictures to straighten on the walls. It would take a couple hours before they were back underway.

Five minutes after the invite, Lorca materialized in the Shenzhou's transporter room and greeted Georgiou once more: "Captain."

"Captain," she replied in kind, smiling warmly. "Command looks good on you."

He stepped down from the transporter pad. "Thank you."

Georgiou gestured towards the door and they proceeded into the hall. "I take it you are enjoying your promotion?"

"It's a lot of responsibility, but I think we're doing some real good out there." The response was entirely a diplomatic one. Georgiou approved; it was good to know Lorca still had that capability when he chose. Some in Starfleet thought he was a little rowdy and gung ho for a captain, and he typically seemed to conform to these expectations, but Georgiou had always had the impression he was something of a dark horse and capable of surprising people. Certainly he did a good job of convincing others of his merits and ideas when speaking with them directly.

"I'm glad to hear it." They stepped into the turbolift, but their destination was not the bridge. "Do you drink tea?"

"I prefer coffee, but I won't say no if you're offering," replied Lorca.

The Shenzhou's turbolift was noticeably faster than the Triton's. In fact, everything about Georgiou's ship seemed faster, brighter, and shinier than the Triton. The difference between a ship in the middle of its service life and a ship at the end was staggering. And his next ship? How would it compare? "Hope you didn't mind too much taking over our patrol route," offered Lorca.

Georgiou shook her head. "Captains can go many years in command without ever being truly tested. You seem to have found a way to force a test."

"Ah. So you heard, then? About our guest?"

"Bits and pieces when we took over your mission." They exited the turbolift and changed subjects to more routine discussion as they passed various crewmembers in the halls.

Their destination turned out to be the captain's mess. Lorca very rarely used his; he had a habit of eating at his desk in the ready room. Anything to be closer to the action. Georgiou clearly did use hers and had decorated it to her tastes, with an old star chart depicting the constellations of ancient Greece, a stylized rendition of entwined herons on the adjacent wall, a pair of well-tended dracaenas adorning the far corners of the room, and a beautiful enameled globe of home. The tea was already set.

They sat at the corner of the table, where they could share the tea and talk with ease. Georgiou served, asking as she poured out the cups, "You discovered a new intelligent species?"

"Something like that," said Lorca. "Thank you." The teacup was very hot to the touch and Georgiou blew across the surface of hers to cool it.

"They didn't tell me much more than that. Will I be able to meet this alien?"

In truth, the Shenzhou was more suited to the parameters of Lorca's self-appointed mission, but the Shenzhou hadn't picked up Lalana's distress call. "Unfortunately, her physiology is incompatible with the transporters, else I would have brought her along." He wasn't entirely lying. The Triton wasn't exactly fit for guests at the moment. (Of course, he wasn't about to risk Lalana discovering that most Starfleet starships were a good deal shinier and flashier than the one she was on. He could just picture her excitement as she cheerfully abandoned the Triton for its larger, much improved cousin.) "And we're on a tight schedule. Once the repairs are done, we'll be underway."

Georgiou sensed Lorca wasn't being entirely honest with her. He might have invited her to visit the Triton despite its damage. Georgiou was no stranger to the aftermath of space battles and would not have judged the Triton or its captain any for it. "So secretive," she teased lightly, eyes bright as she sipped at her tea.

"Maybe," he admitted, but it was all the admission he was willing to give. He lifted the teacup to his nose and inhaled. It had the subtle delicacy of a perfectly-brewed cup.

Georgiou wondered if Lorca's reason for secrecy might stem from a personal interest in the alien. "Is there anything you will tell me? What is she like? Is she beautiful?"

He laughed. "Well, she's about this tall"—he held his hand just above the height of the table—"and sort of a cross between a gerbil and a sea anemone. So, no, I wouldn't say she's beautiful." He chuckled and shook his head. "Smart, though, and funny." Also slightly clingy, if he was being totally honest. (Or a lot clingy; the leskos hadn't been able to shake her.) "Mostly she's out of her element. It's imperative we get her back home."

The description surprised Georgiou. Now she really was curious, and not just because Starfleet had asked her to investigate the Triton's situation. "You simply must allow my science officer a chance to meet her," she said, friendly but insistent.

Lorca wondered how to decline without raising the suspicions of a captain as savvy as Georgiou and took a long sip of his tea.

He never got to answer this question. The comm beeped. "Emergency transmission from the Triton."

The Shenzhou had holocomms, but they were wasted in this instance because the Triton wasn't similarly outfitted. Benford appeared as a flat headshot with a background floating in midair. "Captain, you're needed back on the ship immediately," said Benford. He looked ashen and spoke tersely.

Lorca put his tea down unfinished. "Be right there." Georgiou stood with him, but Lorca held up a hand. "I know the way," he said, and strode out before Georgiou could say anything further. He broke into a run in the hall. A few of the Shenzhou's crew looked surprised seeing the Triton's captain dash by, but he didn't care.

There was someone else on the transporter pad already, a tall, thin alien wearing a science uniform. Lorca eyed him suspiciously as he hopped onto the transporter pad.

"The captain said I am to accompany you," said the alien in explanation and Lorca inwardly cursed. So Georgiou had been planning as much from the start. "I am Lieutenant Saru."

Lorca ignored it for now. One benefit of the non-holocomm system was that Lorca recognize the backdrop behind Benford as sickbay. "Triton sickbay. Energize," he said.

They were enveloped in light as the Shenzhou's transporter room was replaced by sickbay. It was an easy destination to target even from the Shenzhou because it was the default destination for any emergency-coded transports.

Sickbay was abuzz with activity. Both Li and Ek'Ez were in action, operating on opposite sides of the room, and almost the full complement of nurses stretched between them. One benefit of being the initiators of the attack was having all the medical personnel at the ready. Most of the wounds in the room were minor: small plasma and electrical burns, bumps and scrapes. Lorca had preemptively sent Lalana to sickbay before the battle's start and she was making herself useful, assisting one of the nurses with basic tasks like applying bandages.

One case was clearly not so minor. Ek'Ez, Benford, Morita, and a nurse were all gathered around an intensive-care slab.

Lt. Saru was somewhat shocked to be thrown into the thick of things, but Lorca had no time for him. He strode over to the slab and found Walter Chen, pale, sweaty, and nearly breathless. "What happened?"

"He was stabbed," said Ek'Ez, "and the weapon was coated in a potent neurotoxin." Lorca looked at Ek'Ez for further clarification. Ek'Ez shook his head in confirmation of the dire prognosis.

"Chen," said Lorca, moving next to Benford.

"Captain," managed Chen.

This was not the first time Lorca had lost someone under his command but it was the first time since becoming captain, which made it different. He put a hand on Chen's shoulder. "We got them, Walter. Because of you. Good job, lieutenant."

Chen managed the tiniest nod imaginable, more a miniscule spasm than a proper acknowledgment, and closed his eyes. His breathing didn't shudder so much as gently empty like a leaf falling to the ground, deflating him. He was gone.

Lorca kept his hand on Chen's shoulder. Chen wasn't a young man, being a year older than Morita, and had known and understood the risks with his years of experience, but this didn't make it any easier. He had lost his life as a result of his service onboard the Triton. Across from Lorca, Morita brushed her hand against Chen's hair. It had been her choice to bring him on the mission. She bore as much responsibility as Lorca did in his death. They drew the sheet over his head together. Ek'Ez moved on to his living patients.

"He was a good officer," she said, still looking down in the direction of Chen's face.

"He was," confirmed Lorca, carefully watching Morita's face for some sign as to how she was handling it. She seemed sad, which was good, because it meant she wasn't bottling the emotion up, and clearly she regretted Chen's passing, but there was also a peaceful calm about her. She was no stranger to death, either.

"Come on," said Benford to Morita, tilting his head towards the sickbay doors. As first officer, he was responsible for the welfare of the crew and wanted to ensure Morita's well-being in his own way. They left the room together. (Benford had been there, too, but Lorca already had full confidence in his XO's ability to cope with loss.)

Lorca remained at the bedside, feeling grim. This battle with the pirates had been a goal well before they met Lalana, and had always borne the risk of fatalities, but still. Her presence had moved the battle up and changed a few parameters. In another universe, things might have turned out very differently.

He knew better than to dwell. He looked around sickbay. A body covered by a sheet made for a stark reminder of the risks of being in Starfleet. Some looked at it, others avoided it. There was no one correct response to death.

Lorca saw the Shenzhou science officer in conversation with Lalana. The officer had his tricorder out. She was shifting colors for him. This display of irreverence irked Lorca. Even if there was no one correct way, there were definitely incorrect ones. He moved towards the two security officers posted by the door.

"Bring our guest back to her quarters," he instructed them, exiting.

The two officers moved towards Lalana and informed her they were taking her back to her quarters. She gave no protest, but the Shenzhou scientist attempted to accompany her and was denied. It was outside of their orders, said one of the security officers, and he could take any objections up with the captain. Lalana bade him goodbye and left with her escort.

Saru stood in the Triton's sickbay looking like a complete fish out water. The captain was gone, but even if he had been there, Saru did not think the Triton's commander would have entertained his protest.

"What did you think?"

Saru had returned to the Shenzhou almost immediately to report the details of his interactions with the Triton's alien. He stood in the situation room with Georgiou, shifting his weight back and forth between his lanky legs. "She did not trigger any threat response," he said in conclusion, "and she seemed nice."

"But?" prompted Georgiou.

He could not say the same about Captain Lorca. "The captain did not let me speak with her for very long. In fact, he had her escorted out."

"Mm," hummed Georgiou. "Thank you, Saru."

"I am sorry I could not be of more help, captain."

Perhaps she should have sent someone with Saru. She valued the Kelpien's opinion, especially where his threat ganglia were concerned, but he had a marked aversion to confrontation, and a little more backbone might have yielded more information.

"You did fine. Dismissed, lieutenant," said Georgiou with a kindness that indicated she did not blame him for his failure. Sometimes it felt like she had to handle Saru with kid gloves. He was so sensitive about his own shortcomings. He would be a good officer in time, though, once he developed some more confidence.

Georgiou considered Saru's impressions. She could confidently report that the lului was no threat, but little else. She wasn't entirely sure what to make of Lorca's performance or decisions. Unfortunately, Starfleet had asked her to assess both.

But then, she had never been interested in Starfleet Command's internal politics. She was a starship captain not because she lacked the clout for promotion, but because she preferred it to the alternative. That meant she had a healthy respect for other captains and the variability of the position. She would not begrudge a newly-minted captain figuring out his own way of handling things, or suggest that because he had lost a crewman today that he had made any mistakes. From what she could tell, Lorca was an effective and creative captain with a streak of tactical brilliance. That was the sort of person Starfleet needed in the chair.

The assessment she sent did not sing his praises, but did not undercut them, either, and confirmed the alien in question did not pose a danger. By the time she was finished with with it, the engineering crews were back from the Triton and the two ships went their separate ways.

Lorca tossed his uniform tunic over the back of a chair and poured a drink. It had been a mixed day. On the one hand, a clear victory over a notorious group of space pirates and another step of his master plan completed. On the other, a body now resting in cold storage in the ship's morgue.

He'd made the call to Chen's family a priority. Point of contact had been Chen's brother, Paul, who seemed to take the information in stride, but had probably broken down in tears after the call ended. Lorca made sure his family knew he had fallen in the line of duty, but it was hard not to see that as just words, empty and meaningless to people who had just lost a loved one. More important had been his description of Chen as having served on the Triton with steadfast dependence, Chen's high level of involvement in day-to-day operations, and his passion for the mess hall's cereal diversity, because those were the personal details of Chen's life aboard the Triton that reminded his family he had died doing what he loved in the company of people who valued him both as a person and for his contributions to the ship, which had been numerous.

Some part of Lorca had to examine the situation practically. Chen's death did have a small tactical advantage. If the pirate who had stabbed Chen implied anything suspicious about the away team's presence, it would be easy to discredit her as trying to shift focus away from her murder of a Starfleet officer. Not that anyone was going to ask or take her word about the issue in the first place. Probably this was completely moot in the grand scheme of things.

Lorca sipped at his drink. It suited him far better than Georgiou's tea.

The comm in his quarters beeped. "Lalana to Captain Lorca," came the identification. It was the first time she had ever called him on the ship's comms.

"Go."

"Captain, are you busy?."

He looked at the drink in his hand and put it down. "I wouldn't have answered if I were. What's up?"

"I was wondering about the ship that was outside? The one Saru was from?"

"The Shenzhou."

"Yes. It is also a Starfleet vessel?"

"That's right."

"Are there many Starfleet vessels?"

Lorca rubbed his temple. "Lalana, it's late. Can this wait until morning?"

"Yes, I suppose, but I was wondering, is it coming back?"

There it was, the other shoe. Big, shiny ship. "No. They have their own assignment."

"What a relief!"

His head jerked up and his brow furrowed. What?

"I was so worried they were going to try and remove me from the Triton. Saru was asking so many questions, and had such an interest... I am very glad they have left, and they will not be back."

The corner of Lorca's mouth twitched. It wasn't a smile—this day had been too long and too tragic—and it was gone almost as soon as it appeared, but for a moment, there had been the faintest promise of something not unlike a happy thought. "The Shenzhou's a much better ship than the Triton." There was no harm in admitting it now that it was gone.

"Oh, I do not think that is the case."

"It's bigger, newer, more powerful..."

"But it cannot be better, because you are not its captain."

Lorca closed his eyes a moment. It was a compliment of the highest order in most circumstances, but maybe not on a day when said captaincy had resulted in the death of a crewmember. "Right, well, it's late, so..."

The next words out of his mouth were going to be "Lorca out," but Lalana went, "Captain!" with a note of concern in her voice that gave him pause. "Your voice is... less. Is everything fine with you?"

He hesitated a moment. "Yes, everything's fine." Even someone with zero knowledge of human emotion or behavior would not have found it a convincing answer.

"On the moon, you said... you said I should not keep things from you. Is the reverse not also true?"

It wasn't, of course, not even remotely. He was a captain and a Starfleet officer and he needed as much information as possible to do his job—a job that carried with it the responsibility of deciding how much and what information to provide in return. Control of information was intrinsic to command. Rather than attempt to explain this in some way that would probably sound like a complete betrayal of the openness he'd asked her for, he deflected and lied, "I'm fine, I'm just tired."

"Is it because you lost your officer?"

Lorca didn't answer.

"I am very sorry that he did not survive. I tried to help him, but the toxins were too spread out, and too many cells were already dead. I wish I could have saved him."

His response to this statement was almost entirely automatic: "It wasn't your fault."

"It is as much mine as anyone's."

It was not the response he expected. "No. It wasn't. Listen, whatever happens, good or bad, none of this is your fault. You didn't ask to be taken from Luluan, and no one's forcing us to help you. You can't blame yourself for what happened to Chen."

There was a long silence. Then she said, "I think you have heard the opposite of my meaning. I did not mean to say that I am blaming myself. Blame is not a lului concept. When I say it is as much my fault as anyone's, what I mean is, we are all factors in each other's lives. We are all responsible, because it is a thousand million tiny interactions which lead us to the place in which we stand. There is no one moment or person who is more responsible for any outcome. Events are a cumulative result of all events which came before them. The death of the officer is as much my fault as it is yours, as it is anybody's who has ever had an influence on Chen's life. Therefore... 'You can't blame yourself,' captain."

Lorca softened. Leave it to the alien to have an alien perspective on personal responsibility. And it was kind of her to have been concerned, though unnecessary. "Thank you for saying that. Now, if there's nothing else, I really do have to sleep."

"May your sleep be unencumbered, and tomorrow be a brighter day."

"Good night, Lalana. Lorca out."

He took one last, long look at the stars before turning in for the night.

Part 16