Another New Officer

It must be New Officer Week!

T'Pren Inabnet technically wasn't required to arrive for about another week, but a ship headed this way -- the very same ship that carried the new Chief of Engineering -- passed the little research facility where she'd been asked to spend a few days reviewing something for a former classmate from the Academy, and since her services were no long required, she beamed aboard. She didn't come up in the first runabout because she wanted to make sure the station was prepared for her this early on, but one of the ship's crew was coming in for a visit and she'd given notice, so now seemed like as good a time as any. And if she was really lucky, she might be able to surprise Regan Ozan before she found out.

So the shuttle docked and out stepped T'Pren in her uniform, a modest Starfleet suitcase in one hand and a guitar case in the other that looked like it'd been through a rock tumbler full of arrowheads. One decisive, Vulcan step...and then a very human smile as the door whispered shut behind her.

Commander Darren Rai was jittery from his third Raktajino. He loved the placid nature of the Vulcan mind, he looked forward to having another Vulcan on his station.
"Are you Lieutenant Inabnet? I'm Commander Darren Rai. It's a pleasure to have you on board."

Poor Commander Rai was in for something of a surprise then. T'Pren's mind was human on the surface, though definitely faster in a Vulcan way...but there was no real trace of her pointy-eared half except for an impression of a very, very deep well of emotions. But the space between her surface and whatever was down there? So placid!

Her brows shot up in surprise at being greeted, especially when it turned out to be her CO, and she shifted awkwardly trying to figure out which case to put down so she could give the appropriate greeting.

"Oh! Yes, that's-- yes. I'm Lieutenant Inabnet. I'm looking forward to serving here, sir."

She frowned down at her hands when they didn't automatically work out the baggage situation on their own.

"And not a moment too soon! We've been understaffed for so long, the Federation finally decided to send me the manpower I need in time for this conference. There's no shortage of matters for you to address. Kai Bennya brought the Orb of Serenity, I'm hoping she'll let you take a look at it. She doesn't like me much, but I put in a request to the Bajoran government. Sometimes you just have to go over their heads."
In an attempt to help her get control of her luggage, he picked up her guitar case, and read the name out loud.
"Adlai," his brow furrowed as he turned the name over in his mouth.
"You're a musician? It's hard to get musicians this far out here you know. Visitors would go mad for it! We don't even have a proper bartender right now-- just a hologram!"

T'Pren's whole face lit up the second Rai mentioned the Orb. She didn't even notice really that the Commander was taking her guitar, which was probably for the best because it saved them an awkward struggle for control over it.

"There's an Orb!" she exclaimed. "Here?!" She at least had the good sense after her outburst to turn a little pink and clear her throat. "I mean, that's...fascinating," she finished lamely.

But there was no time to spare on just that social hiccup. There were many more ways for the new Science Officer to embarrass herself. Like how she blanched when she realized Rai was reading her father's guitar case and then turned bright red at the thought of playing in front of people.

"No! No, I'm not a-- musician? No. Not me. It's not even in very good-- and I'm not-- so, you see..."

Nope. No placid Vulcans here.

She was certainly different than what he expected, but he was still grateful. He finally had a real crew coming together after years of skeleton crews and making do.
"Yes, a real one. The Kai is a handful, but when is the clergy not, am I right?"
He gingerly carried the instrument along as he walked her to her quarters.
"What's it for, if not to play it? I'm sure you're just being humble. Do you play folk music?"

"Are they?" T'Pren wondered earnestly of the clergy, grateful for the opportunity to stop tripping all over herself. "Honestly, I don't know that I've ever had a real conversation with..." She pausd and then shook her head. "No, that's not true. My father used to take me to Vulcan holy sites when I was a child."

This was the perfect time to ask her what the guitar is for. As she trailed off while thinking about one father, she had to start talking about the other. Her cheeks go a little pink again as she admits, "Did Regan tell you? She would. I'm not very good and it's only certain Earth folk music -- the European and American stuff -- and even then..." She gave a sharp shrug and a ripple went through that deep, placid well of her emotions. "It was my dad's." She said it purposefully at the same volume as everything else so that it wouldn't come out as a whisper and then maybe if she was lucky, the Commander wouldn't notice any difference.

"Regan hasn't told me anything yet, she's too busy. We have a bit of a whodunit here on the station right now and I'll probably need your help clearing some hapless Bajoran's name. How do you two know each other?"
Rai reached up to rub his temples. What a loud thinker she was.

There was nothing quite like being a Cardassian hostage for eight years to teach a girl to be her own company, which meant thinking loudly, and as Rai would no doubt find out sooner or later, sometimes talking to herself.

"Is there a butler involved?" she wondered dryly, and the opportunity to make a joke quieted the flustered quality her mind had taken on since running into the Commander.

"We were the same year at the Academy," T'Pren explained. And though she seemed not at all Vulcan when she first left the shuttle, she focused in intently when Rai rubbed his temples. And then she blushed again.

"Oh, you're a-- I apologize, sir. I'm not always so..." She gave a thin smile in lieu of an accurate descriptor. And just like that her mind cleared of clutter like clouds blown away by wind.

"Better?"

"It's not your fault, you don't need to apologize. It's been a long day. A long week even, I'm just more open than usual. I hope you'll grace us with a few songs when the senior staff meets at the bar tonight. There's only one bar. It's very easy to find. It's not very good, but it's what we've got."

"Sometimes I'm glad I'm such a pitiful Vulcan," T'Pren admitted, sincere and wry. "I think it saves me a lot of headaches."

But the mention of playing guitar drained all that extra color from her cheeks. That well rippled again. The lieutenant looked up and down the corridor and then stopped so she could face the commander. She took a deep breath, "Sir, I don't mean to be...contrary and I would of course love to join everyone at the bar tonight, but I have this..." T'Pren looked around one more time and lowered her voice, "...this problem when I play. This..." Her lips pulled down in a subtle grimace. This was definitely not the kind of first impression she wanted to leave with her new commander. "This...crying...problem." The color came back to her face. A flood of it. "Not always, but...like I said, I'm a pitiful Vulcan."

In the awkward quiet after that, she murmured lamely, "It was my dad's."

"You're not a pitiful anything, Lieutenant. There's no shame in having a heart. I lost my father during the Dominion conflict, and I miss him fiercely."
He paused, his lips twisting into a soft smile.
"I can understand why you wouldn't want to do anything that would open up old wounds. But if, someday, you found yourself ready, I'd love to listen. Listening is what I do."

There was a certain calm to be found in the shared grief and T'Pren took it gratefully. She returned her commander's smile and let whatever was disturbing that deep Vulcan pool beneath her human surface sink back down to the depths with great relief.

"I don't think there's anyone who didn't suffer at least one loss in the war." Although technically her fathers were lost before the war began.

She studied the man in front of her, reappraising the commander she read about with the one holding her father's guitar. T'Pren seemed pleased with the new results. "I think I'd like to show you what I'm capable of as an officer before I start crying in front of you." She smiled warmly. "If you don't mind, sir."

He laughed nervously. What a vulnerable kid, he thought. A tour of duty in deep space would surely harden her up more than anything.
"Let me show you to your quarters before I return to cocktail hour with the dignitaries. Nothing quite like rubbing elbows with war criminals. I promise you have climate control in your quarters, you should be able to overcome the exceedingly Cardassian defaults."

"I appreciate you taking the time, sir."

When her mind was flooded with analytical questions about what that nervous laugh meant, T'Pren carefully shoved them away. She hadn't needed to be careful about the state of her emotions and thoughts around anyone in a very long time. She'd have to get back into practice.

As they walked, she offered as a dismissive aside, "I'm used to the Cardassian defaults."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Did you request a deep space outpost position?"

These were much more along the lines of the kinds of questions T'Pren had expected from her commanding officer, and nearly her entire being settled into the practiced art of talking to one's superiors.

"There are worse things than Cardassian temperature settings," the lieutenant replied with a light smile that did not quite reach her eyes. A bubble of emotion from within that well is carefully popped before it surfaces.

"I requested this deep space outpost position." There was no point being elusive about it, since he could easily look it up in her file. She lifted her gaze to his face to study his response and let her mind be an open book in case he needed assurance she wasn't on some kind of revenge mission.

"This one, specifically? What for? Are you that excited about Gamma quadrant earth samples? It's alright if you are, you can tell me. I won't make fun."

"You caught me," and T'Pren grinned, amused and relieved. "I was President of the Starfleet Academy Gamma Quadrant Dirt Enthusiasts Society. We met daily."

She looked down at her boots and then at the corridor ahead as she admitted, "It has most of what I need both professionally and personally. It was the most logical choice." 

Her head tilted in acquiescence. "My focus is genetic engineering, which isn't strictly science officer material, I admit. We're in the heart here of all the bases the Dominion built when they were allied with the Cardassians and not too far from the Dominion's facilities themselves. And Doctor Ozan is here, which is a bonus." There were more reasons, clearly, but she didn't offer them up.

"What made you choose genetic engineering? It's still rather controversial, even now." Rai thought of the infamous genetically engineered doctor on a station similar to theirs.

T'Pren let out a sharp breath through her nose that could almost be a laugh. Her smile, though it began a little tightly, grew subtly into something more appreciative. "You ask all the right questions."

Then she pressed her lips together in thought before deciding on, "It's a very long story. But the easiest version is that my dad was a geneticist. And he made me what I am." Literally.

"Was that Adlai? They must have wanted you more than anything, ever."
Realizing he dug too deep, he backpedaled.
"We're grateful to have you here. There are a lot of Vulcans and Half-Vulcans. T'Klass, T'Preea, others too-- we're very lucky."

Although there was almost no perceptible emotional reaction, not even from that endless well, the look T'Pren gave Rai was queerly pained, like someone who hasn't quite realized they've been critically wounded. But she turned it into a sadly fond smile. "Adlai Inabnet, my dad. And my father, Muroc." Her small way of telling the commander a little more of the story without actually saying it.

There was a brief wave of human anxiety at hearing there are a lot of Vulcans, but T'Pren shook it off fairly quickly like someone tossing their dirty clothes under the bed when company comes early.

"I think they're all very kind, in their own subdued, Vulcan way. I'd be happy to introduce you! I'm sure you'll fit in fine. Do you go to the holosuites often? Ours is on the fritz a lot, but now that we have a new engineer, I'm sure they'll be better. Do you like Vulcan holonovels? I have a few. I'd be happy to lend them to you," Rai babbled, trying to draw her away from thoughts of her lost fathers. He imagined meeting a man and making a brilliant little daughter like her, and he felt a small pang of sadness.

So the babbler has become the babbled-at.

The Commander's backpedalling gave T'Pren time to breathe and collect herself. Those vaguely Vulcan brows raised in amused gratitude. When he finally stopped, she promised gently, "I'm okay. It's been half my life since I lost them." The smile turns into a slightly sheepish grin. "I'm not this fragile most of the time. Or ever, really. You just..."

The lieutenant pursed her lips and appraised her new CO again, this time with a queer and curious expression. "Maybe you and I are on the same frequency."