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Cptn Swain

Ketsu

The doors to Vice-Admiral Misha Abronvonvich’s office slid open unceremoniously, and Asher Swain entered slowly. His head was still spinning from the night before. Modern medicine had made incredible strides in treating just about any condition, and though the lollipop guild (as he called his medical staff) offered remedy for the common hangover, Asher had always found that the treatment somehow left him feeling worse than the hangover.

 

Sitting with his back turned to the door, Abronvonvich frowned. “Captain Swain,” he said, “please, have a seat.”

 

Pausing for a moment as the Admiral spoke, Swain moved quickly to find a seat opposite the Admiral. “Admiral...”

 

Abronvonvich turned to face Swain, his expression surprisingly neutral. “Can I get you anything to drink, Captain? Juice, water, coffee, tea?”

 

Taken aback by the unexpected courtesy, Swain shook his head. “No, thank you though.”

 

“Of course.” Abronvonvich pushed back from his desk slightly, enough to allow him to cross his legs in his chair. “I was sorry to hear about your XO’s... ‘leave of absence’

 

“For a doctor, she seemed to be handling the second chair pretty well … especially during her time with the dog.”

 

Swain wasn’t entirely sure what to say to that. “I don’t suppose there’s anything you can do about that is there?”

 

The Russian’s face contorted. “Unfortunately, no. It did not, I assure you, run through my office.”

 

Leaning back in his chair, Swain nodded and ran a hand through his beard. “I see.” Since he’d first read the memo he’d been curious how involved the Admiral had been with the mess, and even now, he still wasn’t sure.

 

“Captain,” Abronvonvich continued. “I won’t beat around the bush. I am not exactly thrilled with your … attitude as of late, particularly in the last mission,” he held up a hand to stop any response Swain might have been forming. “But I also wouldn’t pull your XO out from under you -- I was a Captain myself once, you know.”

 

Swain nodded, though in the back of his mind he didn’t entirely trust the Russian. “Of course, sir.”

 

“Though I do want to stress how important it is, Asher, that you understand my point of view on the larger issue. This damned quadrant is chaotic enough without captains going prima donna everytime a mission gets a little murky.”

 

Asher wasn’t sure if it was the tone, the content or just the latent tendency of a hangover to make him irritable that annoyed him about that statement, but in any case he did his best simply to nod it off. “Of course.”

 

“Like I said, I understand where you’re coming from. You didn’t have all the facts and it was a stressful situation. I am willing, for now, to write this off as a one time occurrence. Just don’t make it habit.”

 

That was the best he could do? Swain sighed and nodded pensively. “Of course, sir. It won’t happen again.”

 

“See that it doesn’t.” Abronvonvich said. “As to the communications issue, I’ve ordered Captain Calypsos to have station operations do a full diagnostic to make sure we don’t have any more issues like this one.”

 

Still pretending you didn’t get my message, I see? Swain nodded again. He’d been around long enough to have learned when to keep his mouth shut.

 

“I’ll expect a full report as soon as possible.”

 

“Of course.” Swain said. “I assume that Dr. Svejk has...”

 

“About that...”

 

“Yes?”

 

“I would recommend,” Abronvonvich said sternly, “in the future, that when you have a mission specialist assigned directly from HQ that you not confine him to quarters.”

 

Swain smiled sheepishly. “Confine is an awfully strong word.”

 

“You put him under guard.”

 

“Health risk.”

 

Abronvonvich looked at Swain dubiously before shaking his head. “As I said, don’t pull that stunt again.”

 

A bit like a mischievous school-boy, Swain nodded studiously. “Of course, sir.”

 

After a long silence, Abronvonich cleared his throat. “At any rate, Asher, I think we can both agree that your tenure as Captain of the Excalibur hasn’t exactly been what you expected.”

 

Swain nodded. It was true and there was no point in denying it. “I think that’s fair.”

 

“Well,” Abronvonvich said, “welcome to the Gamma Quadrant. Nothing about this place is ever what you expect. One moment you think you’ve got the place figured out, the next you don’t know which end of your ass is up.

 

“And I know this isn’t exactly the kind of command you want either.”

 

Again Swain nodded, thinking of his conversation at the Grail. Excalibur was a fine ship, with a fine crew, but something about it just hadn’t fell into place.

 

“If you’re asking if I want reassigned....”

 

“No,” Abronvonvich said swiftly. “I am not. And frankly, I don’t think it would happen anyway. Not with Wydown being pulled off assignment and trucked back to Earth, and especially not with your Chief Engineer leaving...”

 

The dull, throbbing in Swain’s head suddenly became much worse. “What?”

 

Genuinely surprised, Abvronvonvich paused. “He hadn’t told you yet?”

 

“No,” Swain said, closing his eyes. “I hadn’t had a chance to talk to him for any length of time since we got back.”

 

“Ah, sorry to be the bearer of bad news then, Asher. I assumed he’d already spoken to you when we spoke.”

 

Unable to keep himself in check, Swain opened his mouth. “Spoke? What?”

 

Shifting slightly, Abronvonvich kept his tones measured. “Yes, he came to me shortly after your docked. I am sorry, I thought you knew.”

 

“And asked you for what, exactly?”

 

“A transfer.”

 

“And you approved it without...” Swain stopped himself. “A transfer. Why and to where?”

 

“It hasn’t been approved yet. Not officially anyway. With your XO leaving, I thought it best to hold off on sending the paperwork through. As to where and why....”

 

Swain suddenly, and for the first time since waking up with the hangover from hell, wanted a drink.

 

“Captain, I’ll be honest with you. I thought your predecessor made some mistakes along the way. One of them was maybe Admiran.

 

“He’s a hell of an engineer. Brilliant really. Though I suppose that comes with seven lifetimes of experience, but to be honest, not sending him back to the Trill homeworld after the incident with the Scorpiad warship...”

 

Swain frowned. He’d read the insert in Admirans’ personnel file and had not too silently wondered just how many strings and favors Corizon had called in on that one. He had also wondered if had been a mistake.

 

“To be honest sir, I can’t say I disagree. However, the Commander has never expressed a view that he was unhappy with the Excalibur.”

 

“He’s not. Well, not the Excalibur specifically.”

 

Abronvonvich paused for a moment, leaning back into his chair as he did. When he did, his voice was softer and more reflective. “When I was on the Truman, Captain, we were attacked by the Cardassians while on a humanitarian mission. My brother was killed in the attack.”

 

Swain sat listening, quietly.

 

“Kosta and I were very close. We had, since birth, been each other’s best friends. In fact, to that point, we’d never been apart more than a few months at a time. He was the leader and I was always his loyal comrade, his lieutenant. That was simply how it worked.

 

“When the Cardassians attacked, Kosta and I were on watch. He was XO and I was Chief of Security. We had been transporting medical supplies to a colony on the border. The Cardassians apparently had decided to annex it.

 

“The first salvo destablized our entire power-grid and an EPS conduit on the bridge ruptured. Kosta managed to find cover, but he was badly burned. The Captain was trapped on the lower decks, leaving me in command. Had I retreated, we would have maybe been able to get Kosta to medical and perhaps he would still be alive, but I didn’t. I stood my ground. And Kosta... well.

 

“After it was all over, I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with myself. I had never been without him, and even though I knew he would have wanted me to do what I did, I couldn’t help but blame myself. The hell of it was, the Cardassians ended up with the planet anyway and summarily eradicated the entire population.”

 

Abronvonich stopped for a second and shook his head. Swain, still listening silently, considered both the Russian and Admiran, and for a moment personnel issues seemed somewhat petty.

 

“Captain, I am tell you all this because I can understand what Admiran is going through. After the attack, I left Starfleet. I just sort of wandered around the galaxy, searching for answers, for purpose.”

 

“And I guess you eventually found it then?”

 

“No,” Abronvonvich said. “All I found was a wife -- never get married by the way -- and a few broken bones from bar fights.”

 

Despite himself, Swain chuckled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

 

“When Admiran came to me, he asked me to accept his resignation -- he didn’t think you would. I told him I wouldn’t either. I told him the same story I just told you.”

 

“And?”

 

“He told me that he didn’t need a lecture on dealing with death, he’d lived enough lifetimes to know about that.”

 

Swain smirked. “Sounds accurate.”

 

“He said, Captain, that he needed a purpose. I told him I understood.”

 

“So, why is he transfering then.”

 

“Because I believe I have a way for him to find that purpose.”

 

Swain exhaled. He had been worried about Admiran, and while he was certainly happy that perhaps the Admiral had found a way to help him, he wasn’t entirely sure he liked it. “And?”

 

“He will be reporting to a new position with the advanced research division. As I said, I questioned Corizon’s wisdom in not sending him back to the Trill homeworld to see if they could remove the … starship … from him, but as it turns out, that might be one of the best things Corizon has done.”

 

Lifting a brow, Swain quickly connected the dots. “I see. Well, I suppose there’s no need to protest then, if this was his decision.”

 

“It was. I thought he would have told you, but maybe he was waiting for the right time.”

 

Swain nodded and exhaled. “Well, this makes things more complicated. Especially since we were due for crew rotation.”

 

“Yes,” Abronvonvich said, straightening his posture. “Which brings me back to my original point.

 

“I know that this isn’t the assignment you want. I know that you’d be much happier on the Idrisi, but unfortunately, that isn’t going to happen anytime soon. I apologize for keeping you in the dark about the quarantine. I have orders the same as you do...”

 

“Sir, permission to speak freely?”

 

The Russian frowned, but after a moment nodded. “Granted.”

 

“I understand that you may have had orders to keep me in the dark about that, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it, or that I am going to keep quiet about my displeasure. Sir, 140 people died on the Augustine, plus those of my crew. Not to mention how perilously close my own landing party came to that same fate. I would never have sent them down if I knew there was a quarantine.

 

“Now, I know you say that Camelot didn’t receive our transmission, and I am not even going to touch that, but dammit you knew good and well what Augustine was up to out there and you knew there was at least a decent chance they’d lost containment. I’ve known Charlie Ostander too long to think that he went cowboy on this and decided to break a quarantine of his own volition, but I also know that the official records say that Augustine was to check on the status of said quarantine. So let me be blunt.”

 

Swain wasn’t exactly sure if it was the hangover that was keeping him from shutting himself up, or just complete and total frustration being finally let out, but in either case he was too deep in now to simply back off.

 

“I might be a scientist at heart, but I’m not exactly a wet-behind-the-ears first-timer either. I want, no I need to know why the Augustine broke the quarantine and why, knowing that there was a quarantine, knowing that is was broken, knowing that the Augustine had gone silent, and knowing that the high IQ boys were sending out Svejk -- for god knows what reasons -- that anyone could possibly think, even for a moment, that it wouldn’t be a good idea to tell the Captain of the ship you were sending to check up on the Augustine what the hell was going on. And don’t you dare, don’t you dare tell me it’s classified.

 

“Admiral, you told me a story, now it’s my turn. Charlie Ostander was my friend. Had been since we were cadets. I’ve known the man over half my life, and yeah he could be brash, but I know damned well he wouldn’t break a quarantine to satisfy curiosity, but I also know he would do it if ordered. That’s where we were always different. Hell it’s why we hadn’t talked in five years...”

 

Swain trailed off for a moment. He felt himself becoming far more emotional than he’d planned, and for the second time this morning, he desperately wanted a drink. Sitting across from him, Abronvonvich leaned back in his chair. There was something about Swain’s passion that surprised him. Honestly, he couldn’t blame him for being upset.

 

Doing his best to recomport himself, Swain spoke slowly. “Admiral, I am sorry for getting so emotional. I know I promised to... keep my attitude in check, but damnit I can’t.”

 

Abronvonvich nodded. “To be honest, Asher, I don’t blame you for being upset. I told you, I was a captain once too.”

 

Swain nodded as Abronvonvich continued. “You want the truth, and I suppose you deserve it.

 

“The Augustine’’s mission to Domaria was, as you imagine, classified. It had came directly from Command HQ. Long range sensors had detected several vessels in the area and we were concerned that perhaps they had broken then quarantine. Augustine was in the vicinity and was dispatched to assess the status of the quarantine. When they arrived, they determined that it had not been breached.”

 

“Mhmm,” Swain said. “And then?”

 

Pausing for a moment, considering his words carefully, Abronvonvich resumed. “I don’t need to tell you that this is classified and doesn’t leave this room, do I?”

 

“Of course not,” Swain said tersely.

 

“Command believed that we could begin to safely survey they planet and begin studying the creatures. The Augustine’s sensor readings showed the planet to be dormant, but they must have been...”

 

“Hibernating?”

 

“Something like that. ”

 

“So,” Swain said slowly. “Why was Svejk sent?”

 

“We honestly weren’t sure what had happened to the Augustine. Containment breach was a possibility, but so was simple communications trouble caused by the ion storms.”

 

“I see.”

 

“Excalibur was dispatched because your ship had the flexibility to handle anything thrown at you. It was decided not to tell you about the quarantine so as not to raise too many questions, should everything be fine with the Augustine. Svejk was being dispatched by Command to help the Augustine with the samples they were collecting.”

 

“And if everything wasn’t fine, the chances of me ‘exploring’ were a lot better if we didn’t know there was a quarantine. And, if I might be so bold, Command wanted to know more about what the hell the Dominion was working on.”

 

Abronvonvich nodded. “As I said, I am sorry you were kept in the dark, but I had my orders.”

 

“So what is going to be the official line about the destruction of the Augustine?”

 

Shifting uncomfortably, the Russian’s face furrowed into frown. “That’s not my decision.”

 

“Of course,” Swain said neutrally. “Well, thank you Admiral for telling me the truth. I think you can understand why I needed to know.”

 

Abronvonvich nodded, his expression easing. “Yes. Just don’t make it a habit.”

 

“As I said, of course not.”

 

“Good.”

 

“Now, about your XO....”

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