Shut Up And Listen

[Cmdr JFarrington 0]

Shut up and Listen

XO Log Stardate 50062.5

Cmdr JFarrington, MD

USS Manticore, NCC 5852

 

If you really stop and think about it, Shut up and listen isn't exactly the way one would want to address a superior officer, especially if that officer just happened to be the captain of another vessel.

 

Perhaps Jami Farrington should have said, Shut up and listen, Sir. Or With all due respect, Sir, would you please shut up and listen? But she didn't. So there she was, a commander, standing on the bridge of the Manticore, facing -- on the viewscreen -- Captain Wolf of the Babylon. And she said exactly that.

 

"Shut up and listen!"

 

Perhaps she was frustrated because Captain Wolf had not been listening for the past few minutes while his ship had systematically pummeled the Manticore. Or perhaps it was his disdainful sneer that filled the viewscreen before he began said pummeling. Whatever the cause, the words had come out, and they couldn't be put back in.

 

You see, Jami knew Adrian Wolf had always been somewhat of a grand-stander -- or so they called him when he was at the Academy. She recalled that, and several other things from those innumerable interminable insufferable days spent sitting next to Adrian in class.

 

Though the higher powers had indeed dealt Adrian a most appropriate surname in Wolf, his classmates had other names for him, some less complimentary than others. Oh, he wasn't unfair, and he didn't take advantage of lesser folk, but he loved to taunt his adversaries, and he had a certain hard-headedness, a definite tunnel vision, and such a bullish attitude that some called him el Toro, though not to his face.

 

Poor Adrian just didn't understand body language, nuance or suggestion or anything else most people would pick up on. And he had a tendency to be just a teensy bit ambitious. He liked winning, liked coming out on top, getting the highest score, capturing the flag. He was one of those annoying kids who just had to be first in line no matter how short the line was.

 

Unfortunately for Jami she was invariably assigned to his reconnaissance team or research group. But doesn't it always work out that way? In any event, Jami had found, through long and sometimes painful trial and error, that it was best to take the direct approach. Like, SHUT UP AND LISTEN!

 

And he did. Shut up, that is. The listening part came somewhat later.

 

Now, whether it was the phrase or the sight of a disheveled diminutive female, her hair awry and her uniform askew, stomping her foot like a toddler facing off with a playmate that stopped him in his tracks we will never know.

 

The light dawned, albeit slowly. You could see it in Captain Wolf's face. First came a flicker, then a blink, then a full-blown rising star in the firmament of Wolf's spacious brain.

 

"Farrington?" he said, squinting at the viewscreen. "Farrington??!! Who the hell . . .?"

 

"You know who the hell, Adrian!"

 

"Jami?"

 

And that's where the Shut up and listen came in.

 

He was flabbergasted beyond words, stunned beyond belief, truly an open-mouthed spectral beauty, completely astounded that Jami Farrington could be in command of Manticore. And yet he listened -- but only for a moment. He still could not let go of his posturing. His nostrils flared, his face flushed, and Jami half expected him to begin pawing the deck as she took half a second to check the color of her uniform.

 

But he did, at least, shut up. If only for a moment.

 

Captain Wolf had disabled most of Manticore's systems, the helm was offline, shields were down to 25%. Captain Sovak had been severely injured leaving Jami in command, her least favorite place to be. Drastic measures were in order. She did the only logical thing that could be done.

 

She returned fire.

 

It was Federation against Federation. Good against better. And most of all, it was mano a womano.

 

And didn't that make Adrian mad.

 

Then she appealed to his sense of logic.

 

Logic? Adrian Wolf? You must be joking.

 

They were running out of options. Babylon was about to destroy them along with the evidence they had just retrieved from Nede Prime, evidence that might put Consul General Jaffe away for the rest of her natural life, and then some.

 

But when all hope seems to be lost and the end is near there usually comes an option no one had yet thought of, and this time it was Lt Cmdr Precip who said the magic words.

 

"Ram her."

 

Ah, now wouldn't that make a spectacular display. Two Federation "tug boats" ramming each other, their armed Black OPS planet killers exacerbating the explosion exponentially, obliterating not only both ships but half the Nede system, and certainly Nede Prime, from whence they had come and over whom they were fighting. A-way far away, somewhere in the center of Sector 001 an amateur astronomer would announce that he had witnessed the tenth nova of the season and it would be duly recorded in the annals of science.

 

Goodness, what an event that would be.

 

But that drastic a measure was definitely in order, Jami decided. She needed to get in his face, much like she did during the biochemistry team finals those many years ago. She took Lt Cmdr Precip's advice and engaged ramming course and speed, then called a hard a starboard and an all stop.

 

And stop they did. Within docking range of Babylon. It was a ploy that Jami liked to call getting close enough to hear them flush.

 

Only then did Adrian listen, but not without several We will destroy yous and a final Explain it to me or your ship dies now. The fact that both ships would be destroyed along with the star system still seemed to have escaped Adrian somehow. A minor technicality.

 

In a last-ditch effort, the Manticore's teams uploaded all the data they had retrieved from Nede Prime's research and launching facilities. Damning evidence indeed. But would he listen?

 

Apparently so. "So Atragon. Jami. What do we do from here?" Wolf asked.

 

After a deep breath and a sigh of relief, Jami replied, "We need to talk."

 

And she hoped he would listen.