Phone Home

Posted on Fri Jun 14th, 2024 @ 6:01pm by Captain Ansel Benoit & Lieutenant Katherine "Kit" Vulpes

1,316 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: The Trafalgar Roll
Location: Outside of the barn

Kit reached up, wiping at the sweat on her brow as she leaned over the fire again, stoking it with a stick. She was quickly becoming fatigued, and now that the sun had completely set, she was trying to work with what little light she could from the fire. With the flames stoked, she once again set to working on the metal, the surface giving a soft *ping* as she tapped away with her hammer.

Ans, seeking out someone still awake sat down next to Kit. "How's it going Lieutenant?" He was exhausted but every time he thought about sleeping he remembered what they would be facing tomorrow and it jolted him right back to fully awake and anxious.

Of course he wanted her to be successful but he also didn't want her to blame herself if this didn't ever work. "You've been at it a long time. You should try to get a little bit of rest, let someone else take over."

Kit gave a quiet chuckle, and her hands paused from their hammering to look up over her work at the Captain. "Not knocking the skills of the rest of your engineers, Sir...but 19th century blacksmithing skills aren't exactly common amongst Starfleet officers." She tilted her handiwork towards the fire, taking a closer look at the connection she'd been working on. "As it is, we're lucky I grew up in a place that tried to emulate this kind of time and place. If we had the tools from my personal holodeck program, I could make much faster work of this. I'm...hoping that the payment I bribed the smith with is enough that he'll overlook that I palmed a few of his tools when his back was turned."

"I'll leave that out of my report to Starfleet," Ans replied, feeling a headache coming on. "But at some point, you will have to sleep. For the moment we are safe. I know that will change dramatically when we reach the battle, but that might be days away. I'm not actually familiar with how long it took them to arrive at the right point. This isn't my era of study. And, ultimately you might have to come to the conclusion that it can't be done." Ans realized what he was saying. "And if that isn't a pep talk I don't know what is. Apologies. Maybe I should go find someone else to depress now."

"Everyone else is asleep, sir," Kit said matter-of-factly. "To go depress someone else would involve waking one of them. I think it's safe to let the ones who can sleep, sleep." She leaned forward, holding the end of a curl of metal closer to the fire, examining it. She furrowed her brow, turning it over twice before bringing it back to the stump to resume her hammering.

"If you don't mind my saying so, your pep talk wasn't too bad." Kit shrugged, glancing up briefly. "Except for the part about how it can't be done. Might not want to tell the rest of them that part. I grew up in a place like this, with technology like this-- but to the rest of them, this is pretty scary. They need to think you have things under control, even if you don't have all the answers." She quietly resumed her hammering.

He sighed. "I know, I need to work on expressing confidence." he watched her, the flames from the fire momentarily distracting, making his eyes stare longer than he intended. He thought it strange that once Evie had gotten under his skin he seemed to become more confident around her. He needed to harness whatever weapon she possessed and use it on the rest of the crew. "What is that expression? It will be what it will be but it will become what you make it?"

Kit paused her hammering, letting the tool rest on her knee. "When I took over as interim Chief at my last posting, I had a friend who gave me good advice. He told me that, wherever I was stationed, I needed to have a couple of close confidants that I could share all of my doubts and insecurities with. But once I was on duty, I had two responsibilities--to be confident when I knew what I was doing, and to listen to my staff when I didn't."

She made eye contact with the Captain. "So, now's your chance. Unload any of the doubts and concerns that you have about what you're doing or what you're going to do next, and you've got about an hour to get it all off your chest. After that, you have to go back inside and be the calm, confident captain we need you to be."

Ans smiled warmly at her. "That was good advice. If it were just myself I would be confident that I was doing the right thing. But a gut feeling that I know I'm right isn't much to go on when you are risking other people's lives. That either puts you down as a fool or a hero where history is concerned. But since you suggested it, what are your thoughts about what we're about to do tomorrow morning? Do you think we . . . I am doing the right thing by leading my crew onto that ship?"

"I think you made a good decision based on the information that you have. I think that it's likely not a coincidence that we've been placed in the path of a ship with the same name in a different timeline. And you listened to the feedback from your crew, and carefully considered the options." Kit paused. "But if I could be frank, sir, I think your gut feeling is exactly what your crew needs to trust right now. We all knew exactly what we were risking when we enlisted-- both the excitement of exploring the unknown, and the dangers that come with it. Without having access to the ship and her computers, I think your gut feeling is what we most all trust tonight."

Ans nodded, letting out a breath. "Thank you Lieutenant." Everyone seemed to be in agreement that he'd made the right choice. Whether Starfleet thought that or not was irrelevant right now as they were hundreds of years into the future. "I don't suppose you have any insight into the alien we encountered?"

Kit shook her head. "I was down in Engineering when that encounter happened, and was just on my way up for the briefing when we all got zapped back here." She gave a shrug. "And I think I'll defer to the crew members with knowledge of Earth history. I'm a colony kid, so we're on the wrong planet for my historical expertise, I'm afraid." She managed a smile. "Now, if you need a crew member to pluck a chicken or darn a sock or--" She waved the small hammer in her hand, "smelt something at the blacksmiths, I can do those things with my eyes closed."

"Hmm," Ans sighed. "He was hoping she might have heard something or perhaps had a thought as to what about the battle specifically they were looking for. "I'll keep the chicken plucking in mind if this doesn't get us back home. Useful skill to have around here I'd say. I better get back to . . . . whatever it was I was doing before I sat down here. Thank you Lieutenant."

Kit gave a nod. "Any time, Captain. Get some rest. I be along once the fire is out."

Ans stood and moved to make his into and around the barn in a circle both to check on people and make his way back over toward Evie where he thought he just might be able to close his eyes and get some sleep after all.

Captain Ans Benoit
Commanding Officer
USS Victory

Lieutenant Katherine "Kit" Vulpes
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Victory

 

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