Reevaluation

[Rhean t'Valae 0]

May 4, 2006

"Reevaluation"

 

Rhean found herself questioning a number of her assumptions – again. If nothing else, this mission – memory loss, tribunal, and all – had been educational, she supposed. Scuttlebutt had told her how t’Rexan lost her hand, though she hadn’t believed it until she’d heard it from N’Dak himself. After all, what sane captain would make the man who maimed her Daise’Dheno? It seemed that the rumormill had left out the tale’s ending. And it seemed she’d underestimated N’Dak’s strength, of body and of will. Mentally she filed him under ‘more dangerous than he looks,’ and wondered whether the same might be said of his brother. The notion of sharing a department with a N’Dak suddenly seemed a more chancy proposition.

 

Whatever gaps the ship’s gossip mongers had left before, they were making up for now. She caught fragments of whispers running from persons to person in the crew lounge, crowded with those who had come to watch the trial’s conclusion. Some of them, she thought, recognizing a face or two, were supposed to be at their stations.

 

From the sound of things, N’Dak wasn’t the only thing around here more dangerous than appearances suggested – the whole ship was hazardous! A transfer might be in order. Heck, if every mission was going to be like this, a nice, safe, boring research lab planet-side somewhere looked better and better.

 

On the other hand, the ship was still in one piece, as was the crew – mostly. As long as she remembered to never, ever become first officer, it might be no bad thing to serve on a ship reliably capable of impossible escapes. If t’Rexan survived this, and the Talon went on as it had been… well, life would never be dull, at least.

 

Next to her a crewman was describing, in great detail and with apparent relish, the punishments carried out in the wake of the squid incident. Rhean swallowed twice, willing her stomach to stay in place, and edged aside. Surviving this sounded like it would count as another of those impossible escapes.