Ensign Lhandon Joseph Nilsen - Trying Out This Reflection Thing

[Alora DeVeau]

(Maintenance Crawlspace, Deck 10)

The Commodore's words had still been ringing in his ears from an hour ago.

o0 V'Airu: Perhaps you should be. Reflection regarding one's actions need not only result in regret. You have now experienced, first hand, the result of refusing that introspection. 0o

He knows he should learn from that advice bhe past wasn't pretty. Lhandon hadn't liked the past. It was where mistakes, screw-ups, and angry XOs resided. It wasn't where Lhandon had lived.

o0 Torka: You say you are off Oumuamua yet you are still Echo. 0o

He knew what it meant, Echo Squad. That was the reason he didn't wear red.

o0 Salo: First, I want you to make a list of all the people you say are good. Then you need to say why they are good. 0o

Lhandon had found his way to his favourite little hidey-hole, a maintenance space that overlooked the main shuttle bay. It was about 5 feet tall, and two people could just about crawl side by side.

He had had the foresight to bring a tool bag, so if he had been found, he would have had plausible deniability.

But he hadn't been there to do ship maintenance. He had taken out his PADD and opened the file "good people".

First were his parents.

Papa

Mama

Then his siblings

Marcus

Sariah

Emilia

Kei'ran

Madison

Isabella

Then his best friend

Lt Toxin Arlill

Then the others he had met along the way.

Ensign Elijah Kovacs

He had paused on that name. He had been thinking about Eli a lot recently and had enjoyed the time that they had spent together. There was something about his fellow ensign, a connection he had. He didn't know what it was, but he had wanted to spend more time with him. He knew that much.

Lt Josh Herrick

He had messed up significantly with Josh, but at least JOPA had managed to mend things.

Commander Rouiancet

He hadn't expected this name to show up. Before the mission, they hadn't met for no other reason than their paths not crossing. But she had gotten him home, and for that, he would always be forever grateful.

Lt Sherlock

She hadn't been that bad. He had been secretly proud of himself for standing up to her and was glad that they had come to an understanding. His mind had drifted to the little robot that was hidden in Tobat’s office. Lhandon needed to deliver that soon.

A smile had come across Lhandon's face at the thoughts, but he hadn't had the energy to pull this off the way he had liked.

Lieutenant Colonel Wes Greaves

This was an entry that Lhandon hadn't expected to write. He had heard stories of Greaves and had very much applied the "so freaking cool" tag. They had only had one interaction so far and it ended with Lhandon’s parting gift from the last mission causing him some issues. It was embarrassing that it happened right there, in front of him, in his office. However, he had heard stories of Greaves and had very much applied the "so freaking cool" tag.

The tag was put in bold and given a nice little box when he read up on how Greaves had managed to save (in a manner of speaking) the USS Thor and had been able to guide the doomed ship down to a planet with minimal loss of life.

Second Lieutenant Arturo Maxwell

The second marine on the list was Max. They had known each other for about half a year at that point, having met on Lhandon's first mission. A friendship had quickly formed between them. He had tagged Max as "so really freaking cool and also he's my mate.”

o0 Salo: Then, you should make a list of all their flaws. The things that contradict this ‘goodness’ that they possess. 0o

He looked back at Maxwell and Greaves’s names, they didn’t have flaws, they were just cool.

He continued to flick through that list he made. None of them really had flaws, not really he didn’t think. Maybe Sherlock’s insistence that he was up to something, but that’s not a flaw, that’s a fact.

There’s no way Rouiancet has flaws, she’s a commander for warp cores sake, she made sure he got back home in the last mission.

Herrick had tried to reach out to him, but Lhandon had snapped and shut him down. The incident had happened right after JOPA, and the chief engineer had been gracious in accepting his apology. The flaw in that was Nilsen.

Eli, the engineer who might be turning into ops, had frequently come up in Lhandon's thoughts. The two had gotten along really well, and Lhandon had somewhat enjoyed having someone to show off to. He had wanted to know Eli better and spend more time with him.That guy certianlly didn't have flaws.

Arlill had been his big bro. That guy had put up with every bit of drama and stress that Lhandon had given. He should have said thank you more often. Very few, if any other people in the galaxy, would have stuck by him.

He just can’t do, these people are flawless. 10’s 10’s 10’s across the broad

His mind refused to delve any further into the exercise, begging for a diversion. Before he knew it, he was engrossed in a Federation datafile titled "USS Crow Dog." He had thought, "No, not my ship.” Kind of a twist on what V’Airu asked him to do.

Yet he continued. He scrolled through the listing and found the crew roster. He saw V'Airu's name, of course, he recognized her.

Then his eyes widened at the sight of her first posting on the Crow Dog—she was in Gold. Ops just like him. He scrolled through her history, starting as a double in Tactical and Operations. The operations side of her life seemed to slip away slowly but...

No wonder she let Project F.O.R.T, Nilsen, Arlill and Whitaker go absolutely wild on the OC. She was one of them.

He flicked through the rest of her history. USS Tar'Hana was a nice-looking ship but then he saw her posting on the USS Equity where one of her roles was as a relief operations officer. Then suddenly, the image of the ship loaded into his PADD. o0 Oh, she's...0o he saw pure beauty. He fell in love at first sight with the Excelsior class starship. The long lines, the majestic frame, and the power it projected. There were still a few kicking around Starfleet in 2401.

And he had to switch to another tab, he had heard about these, the Excelsior II, they were rolling out into the fleet. He had daydreamed about flying one. How would they have flown, would they have been graceful? Turned on a dime or something needing a wider turning circle?

Lhandon had continued his reading and soon found what he had intended to read. He had wanted to know about the Crow Dog, mostly for the context.

V'Airu was a Tactical Officer, and then a second officer.

And then…

And then..

Lhandon was suddenly short of breath, in a second he understood everything V'Airu had told him, how she said

o0 V'Airu: Whatever happened, it isn't your fault you picked up those feelings and memories. Remember that. 0o

His heart had sunk when he found an entry from 2374,

"Battlefield Promotion to CO, following deaths of former CO and XO."

A single tear had rolled down his cheek. He didn't know those names, but he felt a certain grief for the former CO and XO.

This wasn't a memory, just a feeling. A response to the news.

o0 V"Airu: but I also would want you to hold yourself blameless. 0o

Nilsen: Before I was born. Before I was born.

He hadn't looked at their names, not at that moment. He spoke to himself to remind him to remember his age, this isn't it.

He shut the PADD off and placed it on the floor, turning his attention to the shuttle bay. There was still a tear on his face. A Type 14 shuttlecraft had shown up, its engines rumbling as it touched down on the pad. Type 14's were nice to fly. He liked Type 14’s.

If this was what reflection had been like, he didn’t like it. His thought process was to leave memories in the past. They stayed in the past and they didn't hurt you.

Right up until the moment that they did.

When they resurfaced during a race.

When they remained unaddressed and became your mindscape.

They hurt.

[End Scene]

Ensign Lhandon Joseph Nilsen

HCO

USS Oumuamua

O240007LN1

He/Him/His (Both player and character)