Lt.Cmdr. Talos Dakora - Requiem

[+ Gila Sadar]

We don't do many Officer's Logs over on the Artemis - unfortunately - but every once in a while, someone decides to do one to really hammer home a poignant moment. This is one of those moments, as our beloved - and usually quite light-hearted - First Officer grapples with reality after Frontier Day, with our Captain off-Ship being a Medical Officer in a time where that's more useful than Starship Captains. A lot of Sims in the coming months will deal intimately with the sense of loss and despair that permeates Starfleet after the destruction during Frontier Day, and I think the Artemis' Command Staff has put down strong openers for the rest of us to follow!! Excellent SIM, @Talos Dakora!

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First Officer’s Log: Frontier Day +36hrs

In many ways, I don’t think things will ever be the same.

((Corridor Near XO’s Office - Deck 2 - USS Artemis))

Talos moved down the corridor at a steady pace, despite the slight limp he still had from his fall down the Computer Core shaft. Between their own wounded and the evacuees, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to bother sickbay with his minor injuries. He slowed just a little as he came to a dimly lit section of the passage, surveying the few scorch marks and conspicuously missing cosmetic panels that were the only evidence of the atrocities that had surely happened there. 

As he neared his office, he came upon two technicians who were shoulder-deep in an access panel, their quiet words punctuated by the thrown sparks of a nano-scale welding machine. Talos came to a stop behind them, their gold uniforms streaked with grey-black grease and carbon fouling and wrinkled and creased beyond repair. He could feel their fatigue playing across his empathic senses– the kind of to-the-bone tiredness that only came when you knew there was no real end in sight. He opened his mouth to say something, to offer some words of encouragement to these two who were burning the candle at both ends for the good of the ship, but nothing came.

After a long moment, he just turned and continued walking. What could he say to them? 

LOG CONTINUES:

The events of Frontier Day have left scars that will take more than time to heal. I’ve always been proud to wear this uniform, to serve Starfleet and the ideals it represents. But now, I can’t help but question whether we can recover from this. When I close my eyes, all I see are the faces of those we lost—officers I’ve served with, mentored, shared drinks with...they’re all gone. And the ones who remain...will we ever truly be whole again?

I fought through the ship, and watched as friends—people I’d trusted with my life and who had trusted me with theirs—turned on each other, driven by forces beyond their control. I walked across the hull and saw the devastation unfolding in the stars, and yet all I could think about was getting back inside, getting back to them. To try and save what little remained of my crew.

((XO’s Office - Deck 2 - USS Artemis))

Talos sat at his desk, bleary-eyed. He hadn’t been able to string together more than a few consecutive hours of sleep at a time since F-Day, and there was no shortage of reports to file, and repairs to oversee, but none of that held a candle to the massive influx of personnel issues. There was no manual for how to manage a duty roster after losing nearly thirty percent of its crew complement. 

They were wildly understaffed and yet– understandably– many of the crew were requesting emergency leave. Really, Talos couldn’t blame them. From what he understood, those who had been assimilated retained full memories of all the things the Borg had forced them to do, and the survivors… well, no one had escaped unscathed in one way or another.

This left him with the unenjoyable task of determining who they could stand to lose versus who seemed like they might lose themselves without a break. It was an unenviable position and with Addison off volunteering on the Spacedock, it was his alone for now.

His door chimed, drawing his attention away from the pile of paddwork and a moment later, a face that he’d last seen frantically trying to murder him darkened his door.

Dakora: Ensign Alain, ::He tried to smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.:: How can I help you?

Ensign Tasha Alain had been one of the Borgified Officers he and Nathan had encountered on the way to disable the Fleet Formation module. He’d been forced to stun her, but not before she and her partner in crime Sunny Akana had managed to break one of his ribs with a spanner. What else she’d done under the Borg's influence, he could only imagine.

Now, standing before him, her emotions were like a tidal wave crashing against his empathic senses. Her desperation wasn’t just something he sensed—it seeped into him, tightening around his chest like a vice. The fear, the anguish, it was almost suffocating, and he had to steady himself to avoid being overwhelmed by the intensity of her need.

Alain: Commander, I... I’d like to request time off. My family... they’re on Earth, and after everything that’s happened, I just.. I need to see them.

Talos felt the weight of the unspoken guilt that lingered between her words. After everything she’d endured—everything they’d all endured—she deserved to be with her family. But with the ship undermanned and stretched to its limits, every officer was needed more than ever. He hesitated for a brief moment, feeling the pressure of the decision weighing on his shoulders. Yet, he knew what the right choice was.

He couldn’t solve every problem, but if he could make a difference where it mattered most… maybe that would be enough.

Dakora: Of course. Submit your request through the proper channels, and I’ll make sure it’s approved.

LOG CONTINUES:

But I couldn’t save everyone. Hell, I could barely save anyone. Those that didn’t turn… they fell trying to protect their fellow officers. And I was there, the First Officer, tasked with their safety, and I failed.

The guilt… it’s heavy. I knew every officer on this ship, and I failed each of them in some way. I can’t shake the feeling that I should have seen it coming, that I should have done more. But what could I have done? What could any of us have done?

The fleet is in shambles. We’ve lost so many, and those that are left… Starfleet is reporting 25-50% crew losses across the board. How can we possibly recover from that? 

Can we rebuild? Should we?

((Crew Quarters - Deck 03 - USS Artemis-A))

Talos stepped into Lieutenant Junior Grade Sarah O’Connell’s quarters, the door sliding shut behind him with a soft hiss. The room was quiet, eerily so, as if it hadn’t yet realized its occupant would never return. The lights were dim, casting long shadows across the neatly organized space, which Talos assumed was a sort of reflection of the Lieutenant’s personality.

A small desk sat by the viewport, cluttered with the usual Starfleet paraphernalia—PADDs stacked in careful order, an empty mug with a Starfleet emblem bearing the dregs of yesterday’s tea, a model of an old Constitution-class starship. But there were also signs of the woman behind the uniform. A holo-image frame displayed rotating pictures of Sarah smiling alongside friends and family, each scene full of warmth and life that was now extinguished. Talos lingered on a photo of her with an older couple—her parents, he assumed—smiling proudly at their daughter in her Academy uniform.

Talos exhaled slowly, the weight of the moment once again pressing down on him in an almost physical way. Sarah O’Connell had been one of the many crew members lost during the Frontier Day disaster, a young and promising officer who had fallen victim to the Borg’s control. She had been killed in the chaos, not by the enemy, but by an ally who had no other choice. There was a sort of twisted cruelty to her end that made him want to put his fist through the wall, but after a long, pensive moment, he let out a quiet sigh and began packing the contents of her desk into the crate he’d brought.

LOG CONTINUES:

Part of me wants to believe that we can. That we’ll come out of this stronger, more united. But another part of me… another part wonders if we’re simply prolonging the inevitable.

There’s no doubt in my mind that this will be the defining moment of our careers, of our lives. What we do next will shape the future of the Federation. I just hope we’re strong enough to face it. End log.

 

======//////======>
LtCmdr. Talos Dakora
First Officer
USS Artemis-A
O238811CD0

 

[kimstapledon]

This one is quite powerful.  The interludes -- about crew requesting leave and abandoned quarters -- over the course of the log entry beautifully take the abstract sounding figures of total ships and crew lost and make them viscerally personal.