Brigid's Log

Both Jirok and T’Sawa asked that I stay for the first few days of negotiations, though I’m not sure why.  I spent most of my time sneaking looks at the progress reports on the examination of the Deborah Sampson’s warp core.

By the time I was free, all the interesting engineering work had been done.  But I did finally have time to do some hiking in the Forge.  And that brings me to something that I could really use your advice on.

It was late in the day and I was heading back to ShiKahr, tired, thirsty, and a little bloody but feeling a sense of accomplishment, when I heard a kind of loud whimpering.  You might have thought I learned my lesson earlier, but I didn’t.  I stopped and looked for the source of the noise.

I found it stuck it a crevice.  It was a sehlat cub that, I imagine, had fallen and wedged itself in pretty tight trying to struggle back out.  I didn’t know how long it had been there.  It seemed to be getting quieter as I listened, which made me think it was on the verge of exhaustion.  Even if not, I didn’t think it would survive the night.  I had some rope with me, which I managed, after about a dozen tries, to loop around its torso, under its front legs.  I pulled and it seemed to rouse itself a little, scrambling against the rock.

When it was near enough to the top, I made the probably stupid decision to reach down and lift it up by hand.  Had it been anything but depleted, I should have lost a finger or two doing that.  But it let me lift it, without protest.  I expected it would scamper away as soon as it was free, but it didn’t.  It—she got really quiet and settled into my arms.  I carried her all the way back to the city.

I guessed that there would be some official I was expected to hand her over to, but I learned that—I hesitate to say this while we’re still in orbit here—there’s something truly illogical about Vulcans’ relationships with sehlats.  Nearly everyone I talked to since finding her had a pet sehlat as a child, and, rather than getting a stern lecture (like my father was likely to give—the only times he was ever stern) on not removing living things from their natural habitats, I received more advice on how to take care of her than I can remember.  The assumption universally seemed to be that she was mine now, or maybe I was hers.

I thought for sure that I’d need to hand her over to someone or fill out some official request to keep her when I returned to the Deborah Sampson, but there was only more advice.  The transporter tech who beamed me up suggested a few shavings of aratya root with every meal to keep her coat nice and full.

Tazi—the name I’ve picked for her, which is Trill for something like irrational joy—she’s lying on my bed right now chewing on one of the stuffed toys I replicated for her.  She’s disemboweled three already this evening—their white puffy stiffing is all over my quarters.  I’ve been letting her accompany me around the ship, too.  I can’t see keeping her trapped in my quarters.  The crew seems to enjoy her and she’s really taken to playing fetch.  I have no idea whether other sehlats do that.  Both Sayvok and T’Pell seemed surprised. 

I’m beginning to think that this might not be the right arrangement for her, though.  I look at her and I wonder if she misses home.  I don’t want to take her away from everything she knows.  I’ve considered bringing her to the holodeck and running a Vulcan simulation, but I’m not even sure if those simulations match sehlat senses.  Maybe the whole thing would look wrong in the ultraviolet—if they see in that range—or smell totally off in ways that would panic more than soothe her.  I understand feeling out of place.  But, at the same time, I can’t deny that there’s a bond between us.  Or am I just imagining that?  Am I being selfish?

I wanted to get your opinion on this.  Maybe you don’t know me well enough to really answer any of these questions, but I think you might have a valuable perspective I could use.  I know you mentioned on Earth that Ea ships often have animals on them.  How does that work?  I was especially curious whether you have any ideas—if she stays, that is—on Tazi-proofing the ship.  I don’t want her biting through a plasma conduit.  How do the Ea keep things like that from happening.

I should be getting back to work.  We’ll be breaking orbit soon and heading off for an extended exploration mission in the Delta Volanis Cluster shortly.  I can’t deny the appeal of that.  I’m looking forward to charting nebulae and cataloguing new plants.  It’s definitely time for a little peace and quiet.

Pretty quickly I found a group of Vulcans on the steps of one of the largest stone structures I’d seen in the old quarter.  I could tell by that point that almost all the commotion was coming from a single source—whoever they were clustered around.

As I walked over, two of them stepped in my direction, probably with the intention of shooing me away.  As the lead Vulcan approached, I recognized her ambassadorial uniform.  And then mistake number two—though, to be fair, it wasn’t mine.

Sayvok decided to contact me with a few last words of advice.  Out of nowhere, everyone in earshot heard “Savok to Captain Zeen.”  The Vulcan’s demeanor changed completely then.  She introduced herself as Ambassador T’Sawa and her stony-faced assistant as Jobok.  Then she said that a starship captain could be of enormous assistance to them.

I did my best to explain that while I had been given command of a starship, I wasn’t technically a captain.  But that didn’t seem to make much difference.  I noticed soon enough that the sound of my own voice had replaced all the angry shouting that I’d heard earlier.

I finally shut up too, when an imposing looking figure—a Romulan ambassador, I soon learned—stepped out of the bunch of Vulcans and right up to me.  He looked me up and down, as did his assistant—maybe it’s a requirement that all ambassadors have slightly dour looking assistants—and asked if all Starfleet captains dressed like me.

I had to look down to remind myself what I had on: a scuffed, well-worn pair of hiking boots, shorts, a short-sleeved, light shirt, with a light pack on my back and an old pair of Vulcan robes draped over one arm.  I said I was off duty and he shook his head and said something to the effect that so, apparently, was the Vulcan diplomatic corps.

The Romulan—T’Sawa told me his name was Jirok and his assistant was Hemek—went back to complaining loudly about the incompetence of the Vulcan ambassadorial staff and the hypocrisy of Vulcan philosophy, which advocated peace at the same time that it sheltered assassins, while T’Sawa and Jobok explained the situation to me.  Jirok had apparently arrived early (and in the middle of the night in ShiKahr).  If the Vulcan’s surprise and slightly off-kilter reception weren’t bad enough, shortly after he set foot on the planet, he’d received a message threatening his life, sent by an anonymous Vulcan who claimed that, as a Romulan, he bore responsibility for the death of Surak.

I asked where the Federation ambassador was in all this.  T’Sawa told me that Jirok had refused to have any contact with him, insisting that his visit was a matter of Romulan-Vulcan relations.  Not that is mattered since he was vacationing on Risa.  I had a sudden thought that if Jean-Luc Picard were still the Federation ambassador to Vulcan, I wouldn’t be standing there just then.

Dear Rynwon,

Adzi tani ja.  That’s one of the few phrases I know in Trill.  Roughly, it means “I hope this finds you well.” 

I’m sorry I haven’t written back sooner.  I’m not always good at keeping in contact.  That said, I’ve enjoyed your updates and hellos.  Judging from all you’ve been through, I’m surprised you’ve had time to write them.  Please continue to send them.  I can sometimes get a little wrapped up in my own world.

I’ve also received a few notes from some of the other officers we met at the CIRC workshop—I even discovered a message from Patrick in my personal correspondence, though I haven’t had time to open it.

Life on the Deborah Sampson has been mostly uneventful.  You’ll be hearing about some of our technical problems soon, I think—an unusual situation with the warp reactor that some of the CIRC engineers thought might be due to nanoprobes run amok.  Thankfully, that wasn’t the case, but I know they’ll be briefing all the Constitution Captains.

We’re currently in orbit around Vulcan, putting the warp core back together.  As much as I would have enjoyed helping to take it apart, I wasn’t able to.  Instead, I’ve been planetside, dealing with a Romulan ambassador and diplomatic intrigue.  Not, as humans say, my comfort zone.

I was planning on a hike in Vulcan’s Forge before work started on the Deborah Sampson.  I may have mentioned back on Earth—I’m more comfortable in cold climates, but walking the Forge is one of the most famous hikes in the Federation.  I’d stayed with the family of my first officer in the old quarter of ShiKahr—an experience in itself that I’ll tell you more about it sometime.  For now, all I’ll say is that they advised me to start a few hours before dawn, after the nocturnal predators had turned in but before the diurnal ones woke up.

I suppose there’s some regulation prohibiting a commanding officer from going off into the desert alone, but part of the challenge of the Forge is doing it by yourself.  Happily—that’s sarcasm—Starfleet had one less worry, at least on that day.

I was near a temple that marked the entrance of Surak into the city.  I’d replicated some basic desert survival gear and borrowed a robe and head covering from Sayvok’s family.  I didn’t yet have the robe on, partly because I didn’t expect to run into anyone and because the robe was 250 years old and I was hesitating to put it on in case I damaged it somehow—I tried to refuse it but Vulcans can be insistent.

Anyway, I heard some raised voices nearby—not something you usually encounter on Vulcan, I imagined.  My first mistake was giving into my sense of duty and deciding I needed to check on what was happening.

Dear Zida and Jada,

It was good to see you at graduation.  I’ve hung your gift right above my bunk where I can see it every night before going to sleep.  And though they don’t give lowly ensigns a lot of access to the holodeck, I’ve already used Brigid’s program more than a few times.  Oh, and I saw Zida’s handiwork in the rock jumpers.  Their calls were perfect and they leapt around just like they do back home.  One of them even tried to bite me!

So far, life on the Dublin Bay is about what I expected in some ways and a big surprise in others.  The Academy did a nice job preparing us for the sometimes-overwhelming routine of working on a starship.  I can’t tell you how many diagnostics I’ve run in the last few days.  I know it won’t always be this way.  There will be moments of intense, even terrifying, activity—and when those come, I think the Academy will have prepared us for those too.

What I didn’t expect was that this ship would feel quite so…well, crowded.  There were always lots of people around at the Academy, but it was also always possible to get away.  Now that we’re on a large metal box, surrounded by vacuum and hard radiation, there isn’t anywhere else to go.  Yes, there’s the holodeck, but despite all the work Brigid and Zida did, and despite the realism of some of the other programs I’ve seen, I know they aren’t real and that means something to me.

I’m also shocked at how little of the ship I see on a daily basis.  I’m in my quarters, then in the mess hall, off to engineering, maybe a little holodeck time, to the mess hall again, sometimes to the lounge, then back to my quarters.  I’m exaggerating a little.  I have probably crawled through most of the ship’s Jeffries tubes already.  That is apparently a privilege reserved for new ensigns. But I have yet to see the bridge, and I may not for a long time.

I think, in retrospect, that the Academy was somewhat bridge-centric.  We saw images of bridges, did exercises on mock bridges, learned to envision ourselves on the bridge.  I suppose they were training us for command, and since many of the instructors had captained starships, it was natural for them to think from that perspective.  But it’s amazing how few people actually get up there.  I don’t even think the chief engineer’s visited once since I arrived.  I know we’ve talked about this before—I don’t have any aspirations to captain a ship.  Lots of people have rewarding careers without doing that.  So it’s not that I’m drawn by the allure of command.  Maybe I just wish that engineering had a few more windows.

I have it on good authority that we’ll be on an extended survey mission beginning soon, and that might mean some time off the ship.  I’m also happy to be heading out into the great unknown.  I sometimes wonder if I shouldn’t have considered entering the science track at the Academy more seriously.  I know, I know, I would have hated all the theory, though engineering classes had their fair share.  I would have definitely missed taking things apart and putting them back together.  I can’t tell you how many pieces of equipment I’ve had to repair for the science ensigns around here.

Up till now, we’ve been ferrying dignitaries from one system to another in the Vulcan and Teneebia sectors.  (I did get to see Vulcan itself from orbit!)  Seems like there’s a conference or summit of some sort in the works.  I’d guess that Jada already knows all about it, certainly more than I do.  There was a rumor we were headed to the Klingon border—but don’t worry.  It got a bunch of the ensigns on security detail excited—finally something to shoot at—but I overheard the first officer say it wasn’t true.

I need to run a diagnostic—what else—so I’ll stop here.  By the way, my new roommate, Bav, says hello.  She’s also an engineering ensign.  And she’s Bolian and so, as she herself likes to point out, is about as outgoing and friendly as you’d expect.  We’re an odd couple.  I imagine there’s some psychological formula by which bunkmates get assigned.  I’ll let you know if she starts to rub off on me.

I’ll send another letter soon.  Tell everyone there I miss them.  Love you both.

Brigid