Channelling Elsa Gunning

Posted on Sun Jun 14th, 2015 @ 10:04pm by Captain Aidan Rackham & Lieutenant Lhravitelim th'Endirhc

Mission: The Belle of Bellatrix
Location: USS Farragut, D Deck Section 3 Room 432 (Telim's quarters)
Timeline: 2278.50 1615hrs

Telim touched the control to open the hatch into his quarters and stepped straight inside, locking it behind him automatically. He'd just finished yet another shift on the bridge, keeping the ship going in a simple straight line at the same speed. It wasn't a task that could have challenged a five year old, and so his mind had once again began to wander. By half way through his shift, he'd started to picture the accident again - as though the Farragut had been the merchant marine ship and he was flying straight at the terminal building. At some point he'd even imagined the ship crashing into the Garrioch. The fact that he hadn't really needed to do anything had helped him make sure none of the other bridge crew had noticed him, but he had been counting down the minutes until the end of his shift from the moment he reported.

Safely sealed again in his quarters, he pulled the front of his jacket down and dropped himself into one of the chairs next to the small table opposite the door. He grabbed the bottle of ale from beneath it and popped the seal, pouring the contents into the glass that he had left there from last night's drink. He'd managed to get several bottles of the alcohol onboard with him, but he knew that if he kept drinking at the rate he had been, it would soon be gone.

Suddenly there was a rasping knock at the door. Rather than install chimes on personal quarters, the refit team had seen fit to keep things manual.

Telim took in a breath and let out a long sigh, wondering at what anyone could want him for now. He put his glass back on the table and moved slowly over to the door, before releasing the lock and opening it to see who it was.

Captain Aidan Rackham stood in the space vacated by the doors as they sighed apart. "You got a minute, Lieutenant?"

"Um... I'm off duty, Captain," was the only thing Telim could think to say. Really he wanted to just say no and ask the captain to leave, but then he knew that he would have to come up with some excuse that would explain his lack of spare minutes.

"I know that." Rackham said, straightening his back and trying to carry as much of his mentor's countenance as he could. "That doesn't mean you can spend every second of your off time draining this shit." He put it bluntly- she would have- and motioned toward the bottle of ale on the table.

"...Sir?" Telim was taken aback by the Captain's language and bluntness. He hesitated for a moment, looking for an answer to him. "I believe what I do in my down time is my own business, sir," was all he could come up with.

"That depends on whether your extra curricular habits have an impact on the operation of either this ship or our mission." Rackham was beginning to settle into Elsa's energy. It still wasn't comfortable to him. "Don't think your absence on Cestus wasn't noticed."

Telim didn't know what to say to that. He knew that the captain was wholly justified to pull him up on his absence then, and his lack of ability to even help in the investigation of Gunning's death was part of what fuelled his continued drinking. He found his eyes wandering down to the floor as he tried to search for words to respond.

"Listen." Rackham felt himself start to soften to the shame on the face of the Andorian. It was the first time he had seen any form of contrition is his eyes but he had already agreed with Doctor Carver on the correct way to approach this. "If you want to drink your life away- forget whatever the hell it is that's bothering you then that's fine with me, but I need a competent pilot and frankly- right now- that isn't you. So what the hell are we going to do?"

"Captain, I... I'm not supposed to be here. Before Captain Gunning came and reassigned me, I was flying shuttles for some backwater dockyard, counting the months until my service period expired." Ever since the incident that had killed his bond-group, he had drifted from assignment to assignment. Initially he had taken another starship helm posting, thinking he could throw himself back into his work, but he soon found himself back on Starbase 12, coordinating shuttles. Even that he ended up drifting from, until he was just flying shuttles back and forth on Draylax IV, out of the way of anybody, and without any sort of responsibility. "She didn't give me any choice. Made me sign up for another five years and told me to report to her at Cestus. Since I had no other option, I thought I could just get through it, but... I didn't think I would lose someone else. I can't handle not being able to do anything to stop those I know from being taken from the world." He still couldn't believe that he was actually saying all of this. He hadn't spoken to anyone about any of it, but once he started, he found it hard to keep it all in.

Rackham felt for him, he really did. He had read the report, filed by Gunning herself, about ensuring that th'Endirhc joined her on the Farragut regardless of his personal issues. He would have protested if she wasn't dead. "You can get through it. You know why?"

Telim looked up, a frown of confusion now on his face as he asked, "Why?"

"Because if you don't fly this ship at your peak, A-One, top notch ability, hundreds of more people are going to die. Of all the people on this ship are relying on their pilot to get them through the next five years and if you're not on that bridge sober then... we're up shit creek without a paddle. I know you've lost people, we all have. Just don't lose yourself."

"I don't know if I can do that on my own," Telim admitted. Even now he could feel himself craving the alcohol in the bottles behind him. Even if it wasn't for that, he didn't know how to deal with the losses he had been forced to suffer in any other way than drinking to forget them.

"You don't have to do it on your own, Lieutenant." Rackham replied. "In fact, I'm not going to let you. You're to report to Doctor Carver before your shift tomorrow to begin your rehabilitation treatment. If you don't, I'll blow you out of an airlock. Understood?"

Telim nodded once. "Understood, Captain."

---

Captain Aidan Rackham
Commanding Officer

Lieutenant Lhravitelim th'Endirhc
Helm Officer
USS Farragut