06-19-2024, 09:27 PM
==Some time later, still in the Security Office==
==I thought to make an anchor, for taking on the main/
The hammer and the anvil relented once again.
So they sat there together, as I prepared the cast/
They braced themselves for impact like a sailor on the mast.==
“So what will it be today?” Benjamin asked as LCdr Rabb set her case down and started unpacking padds once again. “Maybe something actually pertaining to the charges against me?”
She chuckled, and just continued unpacking. He sighed, but didn’t press any further. It had been a long night, alone with his thoughts and the knowledge that he was being constantly watched. The lights had stayed up, as well, making sleep even harder to find. He was testy, but knew that she wasn’t really the target of his annoyance. He was.
Finally, she finished and turned to him, picking up a pair of the padds as she walked around towards him. “Well,” she said, “like I told you last time: I like to start at the beginning and work my way forwards. It's the most intuitive way to tell a story, don’t you think?”
“Yes, but--” he started.
“So good of you to agree with me, your lawyer, who is going to be trying her damnedest to get you out of this with something approaching dignity,” she said with a smile that brooked no questions or contradiction. “So, that said, I bet you can figure where this is going, can’t you?”
“My time on Allanis,” he said as humbly as he could. He may have been acting like an idiot, but he was no fool. He knew a battle he couldn’t win when he saw it.
“Very good,” she replied, and looked down at one of the two padds, the other one casually held across her body. “Though despite getting married and having a home there, it doesn’t look like you really spent much time on the planet, did you?”
“No,” he replied. “Spent most of my years there doing cargo runs between Allanis and the Ferengi Alliance.”
“Chief engineer on the Aces Wild,” she agreed from her notes.
“Only engineer,” he said with a scoff. “That ship was a piece of crap, if you’ll pardon the expression.” She shook her head with a smirk, but didn’t interrupt. “And I may not have spent a lot of time there, but I really did try with Iris. I loved her.”
Rabb nodded. “I do notice the past tense there,” she said.
“Yeah, though that’s a fairly recent development, too,” he said. “At least on my side.”
Rabb consulted her padd again. “She filed for divorce after three years of marriage, citing unfaithfulness and irreconcilable differences?”
Benjamin started to pace, frustration boiling inside. “The latter was mostly my fault, I guess. Aces Wild got a big contract that meant more money, but less time at home. A marriage is difficult when you’re only home for weekends; it's nearly impossible when it's a day or two every month, or every other month.”
He’d hated it, but he’d justified it by the money he’d been able to save for Iris. He’d been providing for her, right? So it was okay. But it wasn’t, and he’d known it even at the time. It was just him lying to himself so he could keep working on a starship. Because while the Aces Wild was a piece of crap ship, it was his ship to keep running and to maintain, and he’d loved every minute.
“The former,” he continued, “was all a lie. Not from Iris, but from our security officer who for some reason had a crush on me. She’d wanted to break us up and have me to herself, but it backfired.”
Rabb switched to the other padd. “I would say so. Fleeing across the sector, and taking a job running cargo to the Tzenkethi? A job that also included smuggling?”
He sighed, and sat down. “Yeah, I wasn’t exactly picky,” he said. “I kept my head down and ignored everything I could.”
“Which you did by sticking it in a bottle instead.”
He stopped pacing, but didn’t look at her. “Yeah,” he said simply. “It’s a lot easier to ignore things when you don’t even know your own name.” Rabb snorted, pulling Benjamin back to the present as he turned to face her.
“Sorry,” she said, “I was thinking about a few of the guys I was a Second Lieutenant with back in the day. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were entire deployments that they couldn’t remember.”
Benjamin smiled wanly. “Yeah, that was kind of the point. If I couldn’t remember,” he said, “then I couldn’t be sad about losing her, right? Only it doesn’t work that way.”
She nodded. “A lesson everyone has to work out for themselves.”
“Eventually, of course,” he said, and resumed pacing, though slower. “I did my best to just ignore everything,” he said, “but I still knew enough. And when the ship blew up…”
“You had an escape plan already in place.”
“Of course,” he said. “I was plastered, not stupid. Plus, that ship was held together by spit and duct tape, and the captain never let me actually buy the duct tape. I kept that escape pod working and made sure I was near it as often as I could be.”
“So even if you weren’t aiding the smuggling, you were abetting it by not reporting with what you knew.”
Benjamin stopped his pacing and turned to look at her. “When am I going to learn to stop walking into these traps?”
“Probably never,” Rabb replied with a smirk. “Most people aren’t devious enough or trained enough to do so.”
Benjamin sighed and sat back down, rubbing at his temple as he waited for his artificial eye to settle back down. “Alright, so what do we do about it? It was a known thing when I joined Starfleet - I was in counseling and addiction prevention groups as condition to my joining, so surely they can’t use that against me.”
“They can,” she countered, “but mostly as a pattern of behavior. If they were smuggling drugs and the like to the Tzenkethi and you were evidently alright with it, then what would you do now?” He started to talk, but she held up a hand. “I wouldn’t worry too much about that, though; they’ve also got the records of how you helped to take them down a few years back.” She set down one padd and picked another one up, waving it briefly before setting it back down. “And the fact that they’d turned to kidnapping helps ratchet that up, as well.”
He nodded. After he’d been in Starfleet for several years, the idiot captain of that damn garbage scow had shown back up, kidnapped Iris, and blackmailed him into providing weapons and technologies in exchange for her release. Fortunately in that instance he’d done the smart thing and looped Captain Crawford in as soon as he could, and they had managed to take them down and get her back. That had actually been when he’d finally gotten over Iris, and let the past be the past.
“Alright,” she said, “let’s take a break. I’ve got some calls I need to make, but we’ll pick back up soon.”
==And it’s sparks a’flying/
Passions strong/
I am the blacksmith singing/
The hammer and the anvil song.
—The Longest Johns, “Hammer and Anvil Song”==
==I thought to make an anchor, for taking on the main/
The hammer and the anvil relented once again.
So they sat there together, as I prepared the cast/
They braced themselves for impact like a sailor on the mast.==
“So what will it be today?” Benjamin asked as LCdr Rabb set her case down and started unpacking padds once again. “Maybe something actually pertaining to the charges against me?”
She chuckled, and just continued unpacking. He sighed, but didn’t press any further. It had been a long night, alone with his thoughts and the knowledge that he was being constantly watched. The lights had stayed up, as well, making sleep even harder to find. He was testy, but knew that she wasn’t really the target of his annoyance. He was.
Finally, she finished and turned to him, picking up a pair of the padds as she walked around towards him. “Well,” she said, “like I told you last time: I like to start at the beginning and work my way forwards. It's the most intuitive way to tell a story, don’t you think?”
“Yes, but--” he started.
“So good of you to agree with me, your lawyer, who is going to be trying her damnedest to get you out of this with something approaching dignity,” she said with a smile that brooked no questions or contradiction. “So, that said, I bet you can figure where this is going, can’t you?”
“My time on Allanis,” he said as humbly as he could. He may have been acting like an idiot, but he was no fool. He knew a battle he couldn’t win when he saw it.
“Very good,” she replied, and looked down at one of the two padds, the other one casually held across her body. “Though despite getting married and having a home there, it doesn’t look like you really spent much time on the planet, did you?”
“No,” he replied. “Spent most of my years there doing cargo runs between Allanis and the Ferengi Alliance.”
“Chief engineer on the Aces Wild,” she agreed from her notes.
“Only engineer,” he said with a scoff. “That ship was a piece of crap, if you’ll pardon the expression.” She shook her head with a smirk, but didn’t interrupt. “And I may not have spent a lot of time there, but I really did try with Iris. I loved her.”
Rabb nodded. “I do notice the past tense there,” she said.
“Yeah, though that’s a fairly recent development, too,” he said. “At least on my side.”
Rabb consulted her padd again. “She filed for divorce after three years of marriage, citing unfaithfulness and irreconcilable differences?”
Benjamin started to pace, frustration boiling inside. “The latter was mostly my fault, I guess. Aces Wild got a big contract that meant more money, but less time at home. A marriage is difficult when you’re only home for weekends; it's nearly impossible when it's a day or two every month, or every other month.”
He’d hated it, but he’d justified it by the money he’d been able to save for Iris. He’d been providing for her, right? So it was okay. But it wasn’t, and he’d known it even at the time. It was just him lying to himself so he could keep working on a starship. Because while the Aces Wild was a piece of crap ship, it was his ship to keep running and to maintain, and he’d loved every minute.
“The former,” he continued, “was all a lie. Not from Iris, but from our security officer who for some reason had a crush on me. She’d wanted to break us up and have me to herself, but it backfired.”
Rabb switched to the other padd. “I would say so. Fleeing across the sector, and taking a job running cargo to the Tzenkethi? A job that also included smuggling?”
He sighed, and sat down. “Yeah, I wasn’t exactly picky,” he said. “I kept my head down and ignored everything I could.”
“Which you did by sticking it in a bottle instead.”
He stopped pacing, but didn’t look at her. “Yeah,” he said simply. “It’s a lot easier to ignore things when you don’t even know your own name.” Rabb snorted, pulling Benjamin back to the present as he turned to face her.
“Sorry,” she said, “I was thinking about a few of the guys I was a Second Lieutenant with back in the day. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were entire deployments that they couldn’t remember.”
Benjamin smiled wanly. “Yeah, that was kind of the point. If I couldn’t remember,” he said, “then I couldn’t be sad about losing her, right? Only it doesn’t work that way.”
She nodded. “A lesson everyone has to work out for themselves.”
“Eventually, of course,” he said, and resumed pacing, though slower. “I did my best to just ignore everything,” he said, “but I still knew enough. And when the ship blew up…”
“You had an escape plan already in place.”
“Of course,” he said. “I was plastered, not stupid. Plus, that ship was held together by spit and duct tape, and the captain never let me actually buy the duct tape. I kept that escape pod working and made sure I was near it as often as I could be.”
“So even if you weren’t aiding the smuggling, you were abetting it by not reporting with what you knew.”
Benjamin stopped his pacing and turned to look at her. “When am I going to learn to stop walking into these traps?”
“Probably never,” Rabb replied with a smirk. “Most people aren’t devious enough or trained enough to do so.”
Benjamin sighed and sat back down, rubbing at his temple as he waited for his artificial eye to settle back down. “Alright, so what do we do about it? It was a known thing when I joined Starfleet - I was in counseling and addiction prevention groups as condition to my joining, so surely they can’t use that against me.”
“They can,” she countered, “but mostly as a pattern of behavior. If they were smuggling drugs and the like to the Tzenkethi and you were evidently alright with it, then what would you do now?” He started to talk, but she held up a hand. “I wouldn’t worry too much about that, though; they’ve also got the records of how you helped to take them down a few years back.” She set down one padd and picked another one up, waving it briefly before setting it back down. “And the fact that they’d turned to kidnapping helps ratchet that up, as well.”
He nodded. After he’d been in Starfleet for several years, the idiot captain of that damn garbage scow had shown back up, kidnapped Iris, and blackmailed him into providing weapons and technologies in exchange for her release. Fortunately in that instance he’d done the smart thing and looped Captain Crawford in as soon as he could, and they had managed to take them down and get her back. That had actually been when he’d finally gotten over Iris, and let the past be the past.
“Alright,” she said, “let’s take a break. I’ve got some calls I need to make, but we’ll pick back up soon.”
==And it’s sparks a’flying/
Passions strong/
I am the blacksmith singing/
The hammer and the anvil song.
—The Longest Johns, “Hammer and Anvil Song”==