All the Wrong Reasons Part 1

[Simon Ljungberg 0]

Simon knocked on the bulkhead of Debbie's office. He had known this would come and he knew he wouldn't like it at all. He just wondered what exactly Lieutenant Smith had told his chief. Oh well, he'd find out soon enough. Too soon for his taste.

 

Debbie was already sitting behind her desk by the time Simon knocked. She looked up and waved him in. He took a deep breath and moved forward reluctantly. Standing in front of Doctor Matthews' desk, he wondered just how bad this would get. The chief looked up and eyed him closely. Then she picked up a PADD and shot a quick glance at it.

 

"Have a seat, Mr. Ljungberg," she said calmly. "I'm sure you know why you're here." She held up the PADD she'd just looked at. "This is Lt. Smith's report. Needless to say, you made quite an impression."

 

Simon hung his head. "Yes, ma'am." Unfortunately, he remembered all too well.

 

Debbie dropped the PADD onto the desk and sighed. She leaned back in her chair and studied the face of the young man sitting uncomfortably in front of her. At the moment, he looked more like a child than a man...a troubled child at that. Again, she wondered what his problem was. She wished she could say his uncooperative attitude on the away mission was due to fear or inexperience. But it wasn't. She knew it. And so did he.

 

"Care to explain yourself?" she asked quietly. "Especially the part about disobeying a direct order."

 

The Petty Officer looked at a point just above her shoulder. It was obvious he didn't feel comfortable and Debbie had no intention of changing that. Not, yet at any rate.

 

"I don't know ma'am. It just sounded like," he sighed before going on. "It sounded like a stupid order at the time."

 

"It sounded like a stupid order," Debbie repeated Simon's own words. "Since you've been on Reaent, you've had a lot to say about orders. I suppose you think most of the orders you receive are stupid?" She leaned forward and folded her arms on the desktop. "But it's one thing to mouth off about running maintenance checks on biobeds. It's another thing to refuse a direct order while in a life threatening situation."

 

Debbie shook her head and sighed. "Simon," she said sternly. "Did it ever occur to you that by refusing that order, you could have gotten yourself killed? Or perhaps caused the deaths of your colleagues on the away team? Did you ever give that a moment's thought while you were deciding to ignore Lt. Smith because it was a 'stupid' order?"

 

Simon fired up at once. "You were not even there. I only said it'd be a stupid idea to stay on that station. Granted, Lt. Smith had ordered us to go on and investigate a bit but it was not like I was refusing a crucial order. And by the way, it was the Lieutenant's orders that got us transported to the other end of the galaxy in the first place."

 

"Watch your mouth, Ljungberg," snapped Debbie without blinking an eye. "And while you're at it, tell me exactly how many away missions you've been on. It must be a rather high number. You seem to be quite the expert."

 

Ljungberg continued his rant. "You know, I like to use my brain instead of blindly following people I haven't even met before." He knew that his answer would get him into even more trouble but he didn't care just now. Why did everyone think he didn't know what he was doing?

 

Debbie leaned back in her chair and stared at her young colleague. "You took an oath to follow orders. You don't honestly expect them all to come from close friends, do you? Most of them will come from people you barely know."

 

The CMO was growing more annoyed by the second which was exactly what she didn't want to do. She got up, walked around to the other side of the desk and sat down in the chair beside Simon. "You have to follow before you can lead," she said, her voice tightly controlled. "And follow is exactly what I mean. You do what you're told, when you're told to do it." Debbie shifted her weight a bit and continued. "It isn't up to you to determine if an order is crucial or not. The plain fact is, in most situations, you don't have the experience to know what's crucial or not."

 

Debbie leaned a little closer to Ljungberg and lowered her voice. "If you keep this up, all you're going to achieve is a court martial."