Motivating Factors

Posted on Tue Oct 22nd, 2019 @ 1:32pm by Captain Henry Crow & Commander Edra Crow

Mission: Bless the Maker
Location: Ready Room
Timeline: 2 Days Before 'You Say Goodbye..."

Edra crossed the bridge, signalling to the Lieutenant in Henry's chair to stay there, as she wasn't taking her place, not yet anyways. She had seen his reaction to what they'd brought back, and the short interaction with Millie, and was worried about him. Her feet carried her to his Ready Room door until the chime sounded.

Henry stared out of the viewport at the planet below. "Enter."

She walked in, eyes searching the room. When they found him, she paused to look at him before coming around to his side of the desk and sitting on it. "Wanna talk?"

"About the dismembered corpses? I'll pass."

She nodded. "That wasn't what we were expecting, I'll grant you that. But I didn't expect you to storm out that way. Are you okay?"

He nodded. "Just reminded me of something from a long time ago." He quickly changed gears. "So how did your team perform?"

She moved to the edge of the desk. "They were fine, no, excellent. What was that something?" She wasn't letting him get away that easily.

"One of my first covert missions was more of special ops and we took down a former Starfleet geneticist who was tinkering with things he shouldn't have been. When we entered his complex on a remote moon in the Ghengani system the first thing we saw was a room as big as our cargo bay with thousands of children on tables dissected and ripped open." He paused. "The target did not make it back for interrogation." The last sentence's tone was darker and seemingly flat.

She sighed, understanding what the sight must have been like after an experience like that. "I don't know if it will help, but based on what I saw, first, all of these cuts were made postmortem, and second, there was no indication of any kind of fetish or ill intent. These were study dissections, made by people who, to the best of our knowledge, have never seen a foreign race."

He nodded at her report. "I guess that's a silver lining."

She held her hands out to him. "I know, it doesn't take it away. But I do think intention matters. Is there anything else?"

He took her hands in his. "The counselor is on my ass about setting an appointment but after last time I'm not playing her games again."

"Last time?"

"She kept digging at the whole situation between us, Caressa, all the kids. Just couldn't leave well enough alone so I blew up and stormed out."

Edra sighed. "Oh, dear." She said, looking down for a moment. "You know she is trying to help, right?" She kept her voice light, sympathetic.

"Sometimes it helps to leave well enough alone."

"Perhaps," she agreed, pulling him closer. "But if you had your way, that sometimes would be always." She cocked a brow, daring him to deny it.

He couldn't do that as he gazed down at her. "I'm the Captain can't I make that rule?"

She shook her head. "I know it's not your favorite thing, but it is for our good. You've seen what happens when we don't have a counselor," she said, referring to herself. "Besides, if you give her reason to claim you're incompetent, then I have to be Captain, and nobody wants that. Least of all me." Her grin told him she was teasing him.

"Let's get through this drop off for those remains and then...I'll try."

"The remains are not going anywhere until we decide they are. How about within the next day or two? I will cover for you if I need to."

He gave her a begrudging nod but deep down he knew it wouldn't be good.


Captain Henry Crow
Commanding Officer, USS Mercutio



Commander Edra Crow
Executive Officer, USS Mercutio