"Dismay"

[Kansas_Jones 0]

11.01.07

USS Agincourt NCC-81762

“Dismay”

 

2385 Starfleet Academy Ballistics Training, Earth

 

The Old Kansas Territory Park Preserve was a very nice place to sightsee. That is provided you were not getting shot at in the name of Starfleet ancient ballistics training.

 

Mrrett JoNs darted down a side alley, sticking close to the cedar wood building as she did so and visually scanning for any threats. She had been successful in getting this far, and was content with that, but now that she had gotten this far, she could taste the finish and wanted it badly.

 

And perhaps she wanted that victory a little too much.

 

The gold furred Caitian just up and darted out from her cover, dashing across the dusty street and no doubt giving her instructors a mild heart attack – as a rule, it was always better to stay under cover. Bullets peppered the dirt in her wake, but the feline had the good fortune of speed and dove between the two buildings that had been opposite her previous hiding spot. She felt the rush of her adrenaline peaking, and rode the wave for all it was worth, keeping on the move.

 

She was three quarters of the way through the holo-exercise; both Falcon and Banshee had gone before her, and each of them had made it to the second marker before getting shot and knocked out of the scoring.

 

The feline cadet rounded the final corner and at that moment all hell broke loose; the head outlaw and three of his men (and it probably would have been a bit more believable if the four males were human rather then a Klingon, an Andorian, and two Vulcans, with JoNs herself clad in the gray uniform of a cadet while the "alien cowboys’" wore period clothing) came tearing out of the building designated as the Red Devil Saloon, letting loose with pistols, a rifle and a shotgun. Oh dear.

 

Exit, stage right – she dove and rolled behind a storage shed, coming up and pressing her back against the structure. The cadets’ mind whirled, going through all of the tactical options she had been taught so far. There was a way out of this; the so called Kobayashi Maru Effect could go take a hike. She cocked her pistol, which was a working reproduction of a nineteenth century human weapon.

 

JoNs ran out from her cover again, fanning the revolver at the cowboys as she did so. One of the shots went wide, but four of the bullets hit a target. One caught the Klingon in the leg, another nailed an Andorian in the arm, and the last two shots hit the Vulcans in a shoulder and a foot, respectively.

 

The holo emitters located at intervals around the course recorded the events, with the computer keeping track of the scoring. The monotone voice of the computer sounded over the communicator badge that she wore. “Exercise over. Stage complete.” The "cowboys" then disappeared in a flurry of pixels, leaving the feline alone on the street and flushed with her victory.

 

She darted back up the various alleyways to the building designated as the Post Office, and flew through the open doorway. Inside the structure, her squad mates greeted her enthusiastically. All of them already had some sort of call sign - “Brick” Biessman had gotten his six months ago after he fell out of an all terrain vehicle during a training op and landed, well, like a brick. “Reload” Cross had gotten his after he had difficulty reloading his weapon during another ballistics course. “Banshee” LaRoy had gotten hers after screaming her head off during a rescue op training mission involving gravity boots (hers had cut out during an inopportune time when she was vertical). “Falcon” Rile had gotten his due to a rather interesting encounter with the avian of the same name during a survival trek (Rile had gotten his nosy self too close to a nest with hatchlings and Mom was not thrilled). JoNs as yet had not been tagged. Or so she thought.

 

Banshee grabbed the feline in a big hug. “Kansas Kitty, you did good!” The men also shouted their congratulations, and Falcon went so far as to pet her on the head (he was probably the only person who could do that and not get clawed) like a common housecat.

 

Reload shouted over the din. “All four of them! I can’t believe it!”

 

2397 USS Agincourt, Perseus Arm, currently in planetary orbit

 

Kansas was abruptly shunted out of her daydream and back into 2397 as her personal padd blipped, indicating that the main bridge tactical diagnostic had been completed.

 

The aftermath of her little training stunt had not been pretty, and she had been publicly reamed in front of her squad mates (they had made it up to her that night, celebrating the impromptu victory as a squad with a bar crawl as well as celebrating her new call sign, shortened to ‘Kansas’ at this point) by their squad counselor Lt. Commander Tamshioto. In addition, he had suspended her for two days. The feline cadet had gotten caught up in the moment, and completed the course using a method that was generally frowned upon. The whole point of the exercise was for the participant to be outnumbered, and think on the fly. Tamshioto’s big issue was the fact that JoNs fanned the weapon, and by only wounding the participants, had left herself open to be wounded in turn.

 

She had gotten caught up in the moment and changed the parameters of the exercise, with no regard for the outcome.

 

And now, twelve odd years later in service to the Agincourt, the officer found herself in a similar predicament.

 

The feline checked the readout on her padd, and as usual, it showed nothing out of the ordinary. There had to be something viable, anything, hidden somewhere in the computer systems. They needed a tangible lead in order to find the sicko that compromised the NNC holo safeties. It raised her hackles to think that there was a would-be murderer stalking the corridors of the ‘Court. The saboteur was a coward, and they had to find them, and soon before anyone else was hurt.

 

In the meantime, her attention went to the main view screen that showed the current planet that the Agincourt orbited. Most of the crew was enjoying some shore leave, leaving a skeleton crew on board to mind the ship. She had not gone, because honestly, what was the point? Per Lt. Colonel Day, any officer currently on punishment duty was to gather supplies from the surface. Plus the fact, putting the shore leave aside, she still had her marine training scheduled for the second and third shifts. Staying on board and assisting Kairi with some of the system diagnostics and checks seemed the better part of valor.

 

And with most of the crew away, JoNs had also been looking forward to some quiet down time as she went about her duties. But this was not happening as her thoughts would not calm down, and she herself was restless regarding everything that had happened this past week.

 

The feline lieutenant commander – oh, pardon, lieutenant – had felt that Noleph offered a viable source of tactical information. He was a resource to be exploited, nothing more and nothing less. As for Sins interest in him, that was not her concern; Condacin had merely offered a way to get to Noleph for the information, as he had been amenable to the Xenexian questioning him previously. So, the Caitian had merely gone for the throat so to speak, and bypassed the lockdown of her brig to get to the prisoner.

 

It had been all about the thrill of the hunt, the adventure. At the time, while JoNs had been aware of the potential fall out, she really had no second thoughts.

 

Now she did have second thoughts, and they concerned her very much so.

 

At the academy, they taught you and readied you to take on a career in the Starfleet. As an officer, you needed to make decisions constantly, either for yourself or any others under your command. If you were too hide bound, then that may just get you killed. Some situations were black and white, while others could be a gray area. There were also good and bad methods of going about your decisions and goals. And it seemed that Kansas kept choosing the bad versions of said method. Pattern, anyone?

 

When she had made her decision as a cadet of changing that Kobayashi Maru-type test, choosing an outside of the box method had been fine. She had been there to learn and learn from her mistakes anyway.

 

As a second officer and department head who had subverted the authority of the senior command staff? A wee bit of a different situation, yes it was, and not a very good example for her to set as a senior officer. And the feline had paid dearly for her transgression, hadn’t she? A demotion, and remanded to marine basic in addition to her regular duties. Hell, she was too tired and disheartened now to even entertain any thoughts of going for that next big “adventure” – which was the whole point of the discipline, was it not?

 

But, how was she really able to tell the difference anymore? At the academy, everything had been so black and white in the lessons. Out here in the sectors, in practice, it seemed that every situation and decision to be made fell into a gray area. This entire Perseus Arm de-facto mission so far had been a gray area, and could they really hope to effectively apply Starfleet mores and dictates to each situation they encountered?

 

And how was Kansas to know where she really stood in a personal sense? What if she came up against a situation and instead of going with her gut, she played by the rules - and found out later that she should have gone with her instincts in the first place? To complicate matters, she was not wholly convinced that she wouldn’t make the same type of off the cuff decisions as she had in the Noleph issue if another situation warranted it.

 

How am I really supposed to delineate between this stuff? How do I really know that my off the cuff methods aren’t the correct choice for a given situation? Just because my methods differ, does that necessarily make them the wrong method at all times? How do I know…..?

“……dammit!!” She got up from the center command chair and heaved her personal padd right at the bulkhead, and it bounced against it and off with a satisfying crack.

 

The Caitian was the only one on the bridge, thank the gods. She whirled around, claws out, ready to rend something. Her vision tunneled and she let loose with an angered yowl. Twenty seconds later, just as quickly as the red haze had enveloped her vision, it was gone and JoNs was left standing there, one paw clamped over her eyes as she recited a Caitian prayer under her breath. Over and over, she repeated the prayer mantra until she felt the anger subside, and finally until her heartbeat and pulse returned to normal.

 

Lieutenant Kairi Kassem’s voice penetrated into the stark silence as her voice carried over the internal comms onto the main bridge and other areas of the ship. “Evacuate Alpha section, repeat, evacuate. This is not a drill – testing will be in progress in fifteen. Evacuate the Alpha section.”

 

Kansas quietly gathered up her padd where it had fallen. “Computer, JoNs command code Niner Lirpa - place bridge systems on standby, timer for five minutes, and then route all systems to the battle bridge. Notify me when the changes have been complete. Use padd coding designated as JoNs CX20.” Her tone came out flat.

 

A paw tapped at her comm. badge as she entered the turbo lift. “Kairi, I am the only one left on Alpha, as the rest of the skeleton crew cleared out about ten minutes ago. I’m on my way to the battle bridge.” The feline cut the comm without waiting for a reply.

 

They really needed to clean out the air circulators. It was something in the air. Totally.