Joint Post by LtCmdr Zeke Pride & Lt Elli-Navine
Ship’s Bar (Potemkin) Following the encounter with the Borg probe Ship
1536 words

One very uncharacteristically glum Grazerite woman took up a stool at the bar, twirling her own long, velvetted ear in a self-soothing way and staring past the back of the bar into an unperceivable distance greater than space itself. She was dressed down in jeans and a much loved oversized ratty pullover sweater with a neckline which was big enough to get over her horned head but sat askew, too big to sit over both shoulders at once. She had a light ale drawn for her, but had barely touched it save for the first sip off the top.

Ezekiel Pride sauntered into the bar in a pair of cargo shorts and a loud and colorful tropical shirt and flip flops. He waved to the bartender.

“The usual, Zeke?” The bartender set a mojito in front of the helm commander.

“Thanks, Alice,” Zeke said, flashing her a brilliant smile. He took a sip of his mojito and glanced down the bar at the Grazerite.

“You going to drink that ale, or stare it to death, Lieutenant?”

Elli snapped back to the present and gave the commander a side eye before taking his prompt to go ahead and drink. She’d been in Starfleet for a few years, but the Potemkin was already different. It seemed like every week was an entirely new adventure. Nothing like charting and general patrols had been. She’d just been getting to feel especially tight with her new crewmates, enough so that she felt conflicted now. She wanted to stay upset with them, but she already knew she was mostly just upset with herself. As all that emotion swirled around in her head, Elli drank until she put the glass back down half empty, as if to ask if that would do to satisfy his comment.

Zeke raised an eyebrow. “Feel better?” he asked her, sipping his mojito, enjoying the sweet mint taste.

“Not so much.” She harrumphed and rubbed a knuckle under her nose. “I mean, I assumed that everyone installs a power relay failure overload sink upstream of their engine system! How in the hell do you assimilate the technological advancements of thousands of worlds and not install breakers? It’s like a deathtrap. A flying deathtrap.”

“It was a torpedo we detonated right in the middle of the ship, Elli,” Pride said, perhaps a bit overfamiliar. “That is what it is designed to do. Frankly, we probably got lucky. We almost lost Basin,” he reminded, running his hand through his hair. “The Borg aren’t someone you mess around with kid gloves. You have to put on your big boy pants to deal with them.”

“I get it, I know.” Elli said with exasperation. “I mean, even though I was raised traditionally pacifist, we always debated with the justifiable force minority on Grazer. I understand the point you’re making. I just…I don’t like it. I mean, Basin. It’s a perfect example. You didn’t turn around and shoot the dolt in the head. You used all your available resources to free him from Borg nanites, even though there was some risk involved. Aren’t the rest of the Borg people too? Don’t they at least deserve a chance if we can extend it?”

“No,” Pride said frankly. “There was still time for Basin,” he said. “Not much. And you’re right. I had judged it an acceptable risk. But if there had been no way to beam him back to Sickbay, you’re damn right I would have put a phaser through his head. It would be a mercy to the man,” he told Elli. “Becoming Borg isn’t pleasant. They aren’t…people anymore. There are exceptions. Some get separated from the hive, but usually they try and establish a new hive. If you can somehow deactivate them, and keep them that way, there is a chance. But the success rate is still pretty dismal. We only just have ex-Borg coming into Starfleet now, thirty years after they were first encountered. But they don’t tell you how many drones die on the table. Instead, they trot out the exceptional, like Picard, who was only Borg for a few days, or Annika Hansen. They don’t tell you about the ones that have gone mad, or can’t function. And all this is in special facilities designed for it. The Potemkin has a good sickbay, but we aren’t designed for de-Borging.”

For a spell, Elli was silent at the harshness of the truth. She’d wanted to believe everyone was potentially savable, but…she had to admit Zeke was right. She’d only been thinking about the possible good outcomes. She’d not wanted to picture anything else. And now her optimism had lost its structural integrity.

“It’s a nightmare no matter how you slice it,” she whispered. “I just… I never killed anyone before. I’ve never been the one at tactical. I’ve always put a space between myself and the killing action and let myself think it wasn’t me. I wasn’t responsible for it. I just keep things running. I don’t press the key to fire. But when I vaporized that ship…?” Her shoulders slumped with the weight of shame. “I couldn’t tell myself that anymore. I just… It’s not even just the Borg ship. I couldn’t pretend anymore about any of the ship battles I’ve been in, or away teams I’ve supported where things came to lethal blows.” She looked up again, fixing Zeke with a sad, pained look, her ears fallen low, her already pout-like protruding lip drawn out in pain, and her eyes asking for help. “Just because I don’t pull the trigger doesn’t mean I’m not part of the gun.”

Zeke gave Elli a sympathetic smile, and put a hand on the Grazer’s shoulder. “It’s a matter of perspective, Lieutenant,” he said. “How would you feel if your inaction had led to us all being killed — or worse, assimilated? The Borg are essentially walking dead. You save the ones you can, but you can’t think of them in the same terms you do other sentients. I’ve met a few ex-Borg. Some would rather have been dead, even if it meant they weren’t here now, because it would spare them the haunting grief and nightmares they have to live with.”

Pride sipped his mojito. “A wise man on Earth a long time ago once said there are three kinds of people in this universe. Sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. By signing on with Starfleet, you signed up to be a sheepdog. And you know what sheepdogs do? They protect the sheep from the wolves. That is a responsibility to be proud of, Elli. It’s a weighty responsibility, but one I think you are capable of carrying.”

She nodded, encouraged, but burdened all the more. “Yeah.” Resuming the rest of her ale, Elli considered all of this. She wasn’t quite there. You didn’t just kill people because they wanted to die. But she couldn’t find purchase to argue with any of the rest of it. She came from a world passionately dedicated to the power of peace. A world that everyone else thought of as sheep. And now she felt like an outsider. “My Upsol… my family, I mean, none of them would understand this. ‘No solution from the barrel of a gun is ever worth it.’ is my father’s opinion. But. I don’t know. I mean, he never has to decide how to confront the Borg.” She set down her empty glass, turning it side to side. “I think—” Elli flagged Alice. “I think I need another ale.”

“My tab,” Pride said. “And you’re right. Your father has the luxury of never making the hard calls,” he agreed with Elli. “Because you took that responsibility. What would he do if his family was threatened?”

“It’s hard to explain to others, but, on Grazer, stories of martyrs are the most popular and enduring. My father would try escape, appealing to reason, and then self-sacrifice. Should they fail, then…” She shrugged. “It’s why the rest of the Federation calls us a prey species.” Her ale came through and she thanked Alice. Elli smiled at something while wrapping her fingers around the new chilled glass. “It’s why I got a real heartswell when Commander Mikhael stepped between the factions on the old Atlantis, unarmed. That’s the perfect picture of heroism on Grazer.”

Zeke nodded. “It is noble,” he said. “But it assumes that the enemy has a…soul, a sense of respect for other sentients. It worked for Commander Mikhael because it reminded the factions of their commonality. It doesn’t work on something like the Borg. We are just meat and technology to be assimilated by them.”

“They don’t even have respect for themselves. No safety protocols. No sense of individual self to preserve.” She blew air through her lips. “I don’t want to talk about the Borg anymore, Zeke.”

“Then we celebrate one more day we get to keep living,” Zeke said, lifting his mojito to Elli.

“Just one?” She smiled in spite of herself. Maybe she wasn’t as good a Grazerite as she should have been because she had to admit to herself that she didn’t plan on becoming a martyr. She raised her own glass to drink. “Let’s keep the streak going.”

~