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Epilogue: They That Shed Their Blood [Day 03 | 1800 ]

 

[ President Bacco | Corridor outside the Arboretum Terrace | Deck 21 | Vector 3| USS Theurgy ]
ATTN: @Brutus @Nolan @ob2lander961 @chXinya @Dumedion @Griff @rae @Stegro88 @Eirual @RyeTanker @tongieboi @Pierce @Tae @Nesota Kynnovan @Hans Applegate @joshs1000 @P.C. Haring @Krajin @Eden @TWilkins

President Nanietta Bacco stood just off the memorial space, listening to the muted cadence of voices inside as final preparations were made. The responsibility before her was a narrow one—intentional, negotiated. She would preside over only a portion of the service. The heart of it belonged to the ship, and to Commander Natalie Stark, who would carry most of the words, the silences, the weight.

That was as it should be.

An aide leaned in quietly, careful not to intrude on the moment more than necessary. “Madam President,” she murmured, “we’ve received another formal request from a Federation council member. They’re asking for a reassessment of the Theurgy’s pardon—this time through a more official, public review process.”

Bacco closed her eyes for a fraction of a second. Not surprise. Fatigue.

“Noted,” she said evenly. “After the memorial.”

A second aide spoke just as softly, tension threading his voice. “Additionally—Task Force Archeron has officially disbanded. However, Admiral Sankolov has rerouted himself and several remaining assets. He’s citing new intelligence: a potential threat to the Federation near the Ferengi border.”

Bacco’s gaze lifted, finding Ambassador Garak without turning her head. For a long beat, neither of them spoke.

“Convenient,” she said at last.

“Or inspired timing,” Garak replied mildly. “Depending on one’s generosity.”

They shared a look—quiet, wary, unspoken calculations moving behind both pairs of eyes. Was it a legitimate threat? Or a carefully placed excuse to avoid comprehensive scans, scrutiny, and the uncomfortable exposure Bacco had just asked of Qo’noS?

There would be time to untangle that knot. Not now.

Bacco straightened, setting the questions aside with practiced discipline. “Commander Stark will lead,” she said. “I’ll take my place when invited.”

The doors opened.

[ Petty Officer Second Class Kavon Brown | Personal Quarters | Deck 20 | Vector 3 ]

Petty Officer Second Class Kavon Brown stood in his quarters, hands resting on the edge of the small desk bolted to the bulkhead, staring at the padd in front of him without really seeing it. He’d read the casualty report three times already. He couldn’t remember all the names. Not cleanly. Not in order. They blurred together after a point—too many, too fast, each one a quiet blow he hadn’t been braced for. But some of them stuck. Some of them refused to be filed away.

The untouchables. The ones who had always seemed like they’d somehow make it through anything. The ones who walked into triage with half their uniform burned away and still cracked jokes. The ones who felt… permanent.

Valyn Amarik.
Asra Tek.
Tyreke Okafor.
Jonathan Byrne.
Evelyn Rawley.
Andram Obair.
Talera Emlott.

Names he knew. Some he’d worked with. Some he’d shared meals with. A few he’d dated. Faces he could still picture across a biobed, or leaning in a hatchway, or slumped against a bulkhead waiting for clearance he’d once helped sign off on.

Liam Herrald.
Kai Akoni.
Thomas Ravon.
Cir’Cie.
Vinata Vojona.
Kizra Tos.
Sorek Morgan.
Amissa.
Scruffy LeBlanc—he huffed softly at that, the ghost of a laugh that died before it fully formed.

Others he’d never known, their time onboard had been too brief.

Sashenka Kreshkova.
Nara Nueva.

Kavon exhaled slowly and set the padd down. He’d been with the Theurgy since the beginning. Commissioning crew. Medical. Nurse, physio. He’d learned this ship the hard way—during chaos, during flight, during that long, cold stretch of stasis after Earth when his body had been too broken to keep up. He remembered waking above Aldea, stiff and disoriented, angry at the time he’d lost. Now he wondered if that enforced pause had spared him names that would have otherwise been on this list.

The Theurgy was—tentatively—back in the Federation’s good graces. That was the phrase people were using. Tentatively. Carefully. Like the whole thing might shatter if said too loudly. Home, though, still felt impossibly far away.

Kavon adjusted his uniform, smoothing a nonexistent wrinkle, and forced himself to stand straighter. The memorial wasn’t about his fear, or his exhaustion, or the quiet question gnawing at him now. How many more? How many more names before this ship was finally allowed to stop running? Before “holding the line” didn’t mean watching the people you thought were invincible prove—one by one—that they weren’t?

He squared his shoulders and stepped out into the corridor, joining the slow flow of crew heading toward the memorial space.
Behind him, the hum of the Theurgy continued—scarred, stubborn, alive. Ahead, the names waited to be spoken. And the long road home stretched on, uncertain and unforgiving, asking its price in advance.

[ Commander Natalie Stark | Arboretum Terrace - Memorial Wall | Deck 21 | Vector 3| USS Theurgy ]

Not for the first time, Natalie stood in front of the wall of names that ringed the level above the ships Arbortetum. Numerous fellow officers and enlisted crammed the walkway, the cafe above, and the garden below. More still would be watching throughout the Theurgy, as this would be broadcast to any and all who wished to watch. This was however, the first time that Natalie was doing so as the Commanding Officer of the Theurgy. Even when not present, Ives had been the backdrop upon which every person here could rely. And they were gone. Not dead, but not available. That simply compounded the pain she already felt over the plight of Lt.Vanya, infected with a nasty parting gift from the Tal Shiar. And the loss of life, so many colleagues that they were here to remember now. Not to mention allies in both the Klingon and Romulan fleets that had battled...so many dead. How she was standing now was a mystery to the woman from Mars.

A cold comfort to the pardon that the President had given the crew. Welcome back to the fold. Sorry, the person most responsible is frozen in stasis right now, but there’s work to be done. Lots of people will hate you, but the mission isn’t over. How the hell could she make that a palatable message to swallow? What words could she use to sweeten that bitter pill?

Beating herself up wouldn’t make it any easier. Focusing on the pressure, the stress, the worry, the inadequacy - she would spiral. It would be so easy. And too many people depended on her to do that. Yet again, responsibility was dropped onto her shoulders, and she knew it was only a matter of time until the weight would be too much. But she could manage for now.

Adjusting the hem of her dress uniform, she glanced over at President Bacco and Ambassador Garak on one side of her, then to Lt. Commander Cross, and Thea, her projection attired in somber black, on the other. Drawing strength from their presence, Natalie stepped forward and placed her hands upon the railing in front of her, looking down to the assembled crew below. A ghost of a smile - fleeting and bittersweet - graced her face as she summoned up the courage to speak.

“We are gathered here once more to pay homage to those we have lost. Another battle. Another fight for the very salvation of all of our collected peoples. Another gathering to mourn the dead, and the wounded, too hurt to be with us here.” She paused, feeling anger bubble in her chest alongside the sense of loss. “Every time we gather like this, it hurts. It’s a festering pain that eats away at all of us. A void of grief when we say goodbye to another comrade. A bubbling bile of pure bitter rage that can barely be contained, when we suffer more losses, in what seems like an endless stream of fight after fight.

“For so long, it has been one hopeless moment after another. But,” she paused, looking out, then over, acknowledging just who was there today, standing beside her. “We are not alone. First, it was our allies in the Klingon Empire that stood with us. That gave us shelter and care, and offered up brothers and sisters in arms to our cause. Who bled and died alongside us. Then, there were Romulans, who answered the call. The Remans have come to the table. This last battle was horrific. Costly. We were flung across many lightyears, strung out on a myriad of missions that were each critical to the very future of the galaxy itself.”

Her knuckles were white as she gripped that rail, and she prayed her voice did not quiver or crack as her arms shook slightly. She pushed on. “And now....now we are vindicated. The Truth is out there. Our own people now know of our sacrifice. The horrors we have faced,”  she turned and gestured now, to the President. “The Federation now knows! And I know what that has cost. What we have all paid for dearly to get to this point. I know the pain, the sorrow, the anger you all feel. And I know that the mission is not done. There is more to do. We cannot let the sacrifices to this point fade just because we have finally had real, marked success. We cannot let the vigilance we have shown die. For each other. For those we have lost. For the future of the Federation and our allies. For Jien Ives, who never once wavered, and who will surely return to use when healed. Will we let them down by failing to carry on the fight?”

Silence hung on her words. She didn’t realize she was breathing heavy. She couldn’t tell her face was flushed, and her eyes were alight with some inner fire. For a moment, silence. She sucked in a breath. “No. We will not. We will not falter. Not now. Not ever.”

“Never!” someone below called out. Then another voice. And another. And soon it was a roar. Natlaie blinked in surprise at the ferocity that answered her in that moment. She wondered if this was why Klignons cried to the skies at the death of a comrade, to warn the halls of Sto’Vo’Kor that a new Warrior was coming to join in eternal glory? She let them have their moment, then raised a hand.

“I am sure that all those we lost heard you, wherever their souls have found solace,” Natalie said, feeling the quiet tears streaking her cheeks. When had those started? “A roaring send off. And now, a small moment of silence, before others have their say. I’m sure you all don’t want to just listen to me.” A smattering of chuckles, then respectfully, all bowed their heads. Natalie felt humbled in the moment, and wanted nothing more than to step back through the doors behind her and hide after baring her soul in a speech that had been nothing as she had planned.

“Thank you,” she said quietly into that silence, and took a step back, turning to Nanietta Bacco. “Madame President, the floor is yours.”

[ President Bacco | Arboretum Terrace - Memorial Wall | Deck 21 | Vector 3| USS Theurgy ]
President Bacco stepped forward slowly, one hand resting briefly on the cool stone of the memorial wall before she turned to face the crew of the USS Theurgy. For a moment, she did not speak. She couldn’t. Not with the sheer weight of the number of names listed on this wall. When she did, her voice carried the steadiness of someone who had weathered political storms—and chosen, deliberately, to stand in one more.

“Captain,” she began gently to Stark, “if there are those who doubt the resolve of this crew, they need only have heard you.”
Her gaze swept over the gathered crew—Starfleet uniforms, the somber projection of Thea, the scars and bandages still visible on too many. “I stand before you not only as President of the United Federation of Planets, but as a citizen who owes you a debt.” She allowed a pause, gathered her racing thoughts and emotions, before continuing. “For months, you were called traitors. Outlaws. Renegades. The machinery of our own government turned against you. Orders were issued to hunt you. To silence you. To erase you.”

She did not soften the truth. That would only cheapen the sacrifice.

“And you endured.” Her eyes hardened—not in anger, but in clarity. “You endured not for vengeance. Not for pride. But for truth.” She inclined her head slightly toward the memorial wall. “The names behind me did not give their lives in rebellion against the Federation. They gave their lives to preserve it.” A ripple of quiet moved through the crowd. “The infection that reached into Starfleet Command was not merely an impersonation of senior officers. It was an assault on trust itself. On the belief that our institutions are stronger than our enemies. On the conviction that transparency and law will outlast deception and fear.” She folded her hands before her. “You proved that conviction right.”

Bacco's gaze returned to Stark. “You asked whether we would let them down by faltering now.” Glancing at Garak, her resolve strengthened and her voice deepened. “No. The Federation does not abandon those who defend it from within and without. The pardon you were granted is not a political convenience. It is a recognition of fact: you acted in defense of the Federation when its own voice had been stolen.”

“But vindication does not erase grief. Nor does justice restore the fallen.” Her voice softened. “I cannot give you back Captain Ives’ presence. I cannot promise that there will not be those within the Federation who still question you. Institutions heal more slowly than people.” She inwardly sighed. “But I can promise this: the truth will not be buried again. Starfleet Command will be rebuilt with safeguards that will make such infiltration far more difficult. Oversight will be expanded. Civilian review councils will be strengthened. And the record will reflect—clearly and permanently—the actions of this crew.”

She allowed the weight of that to settle before continuing. “The Federation was founded on a simple, radical idea: that diverse worlds, with different histories and different wounds, could choose cooperation over conquest. In recent months, that idea was tested.” Her eyes shone now—not with tears, but with fierce belief. “You did more than survive that test. You reminded us what we are supposed to be.” She drew in a breath. “The mission is not over. There are still enemies in shadow. There are still fractures between allies that must be mended. There are still those who would exploit our divisions. But you are no longer alone in that fight.” Her gaze swept the gathered crew once more. “You are back in the fold—not as prodigal officers reluctantly tolerated, but as exemplars of Starfleet’s highest calling.”

A quiet strength filled her voice. “Go forward not as fugitives. Not as victims of betrayal. But as the crew who refused to let the Federation fall to deception. To those we lost: your sacrifice will not be forgotten.” For the first time since stepping forward, Nanietta Bacco allowed the faintest edge of iron into her tone. “Let history record that when the Federation’s voice was stolen, the crew of the USS Theurgy carried it—through fire, through exile, and back into the light.” She stepped back from the railing. “The Federation stands with you.”

[ Aide Tomas Virel ]

From behind the discreet shoulder-mounted FNN camera, Aide Tomas Virel kept his breathing slow and even. The red recording light blinked steadily. He made sure the frame was perfect—President Nanietta Bacco centered against the memorial wall, the insignia of the United Federation of Planets subtly visible above her shoulder, the gathered crew of the USS Theurgy arranged in solemn tiers below. It would make an excellent broadcast. Stirring. Historic.

Dangerous.

He adjusted the focus manually, though it didn’t need adjusting. The President’s voice carried with conviction—measured, righteous, resolute. It would play well across the core worlds. It would play even better on frontier colonies who already believed Starfleet Command had grown distant and insulated.

But Tomas knew something most of the viewers would not. There had been no full Council session. No formal vote. No procedural inquiry completed before the pardon was issued. The emergency powers invoked were technically within executive authority, yes—but they were meant to be provisional, temporary, pending review by the Federation Council. Instead, the announcement had been made publicly. Decisively. Irrevocably.

He kept the camera steady as the President promised oversight reforms. Oversight that had not yet been drafted. He felt the faint sheen of sweat under his collar.

He believed the crew of the Theurgy had likely done the right thing. The initial evidence packets recovered from the infiltrated Starfleet Command were compelling. Horrifying. If even half of it was authenticated—and early intelligence suggested it was—then this crew had saved the Federation from internal rot.

But bureaucracy had its own gravity. Procedure was not decoration. It was legitimacy. And legitimacy was fragile.
He imagined the Council chambers on Earth already buzzing. Andoria demanding procedural review. Vulcan insisting on investigative transparency. Tellarite delegates sharpening objections not to the outcome—but to the order of operations.

Order mattered. In governance, order sometimes mattered more than being right. Because once precedent was set—that a President could unilaterally pardon a crew accused of treason, restructure Starfleet oversight, and declare institutional vindication before full Council ratification—future leaders might not wield that authority so carefully.

His lens caught the moment the President said, “The Federation stands with you.”

It was a powerful line. It would trend on every subspace channel within the hour. And half the quadrant would cheer. The other half would ask who authorized her to speak for them.

Tomas swallowed. He would edit nothing. That was not his role. FNN prided itself on uncut feeds of presidential addresses. Transparency, even when uncomfortable. Especially when uncomfortable.

Still, as applause rose and the President stepped back, he couldn’t shake the unease curling in his gut. History might remember this as the moment the Federation reclaimed its moral center. Or as the moment executive authority quietly expanded under the cover of righteous necessity.

The camera’s red light continued to blink. He kept filming.
GM Notes: We will post the next portion of the memorial next Sunday. All writers have exactly one week to respond to this portion of the memorial. Then once we post up the second, and final, portion of the memorial, writers will have exactly one week to respond to that before the memorial is closed, thereby concluding the Epilogue, and launching us into the Interregnum.

Re: Epilogue: They That Shed Their Blood [Day 03 | 1800 ]

Reply #1 –
[CPO Avandar Lok | Flight Deck | Fighter Assault Bay | Deck 16 | Vector 03 | USS Theurgy] Attn: @Brutus  @Nolan  @ob2lander961  @chXinya  @Dumedion  @Griff  @rae  @Stegro88  @Eirual  @RyeTanker  @tongieboi  @Pierce  @Tae  @Nesota Kynnovan  @Hans Applegate  @Ellen Fitz  @P.C. Haring  @Krajin  @Eden  @TWilkins
[Show/Hide]

It was deathly quiet on the deck, apart from the hum of machinery and the occasional sounds made by the ferasan Chief as he went about his duties, alone. Lok had already dismissed the deck gang, practically ordering them to attend the memorial. He stayed behind, he had been to enough of them, the Dominion War produced plenty of grief and it was not the way Lok chose to wallow in his sorrow. Diving into his work, that’s what he needed, something to occupy his mind while it worked things out in the background, all the while he told himself, guys get killed, it’s war. Perhaps cold and callous but he knew if he let himself think about those who had been lost, seeing their shattered bodies, smelling their blood, it would knock him down when he was needed most. He just needed to keep up the work and work and work until exhaustion forced him to sleep, wake up once more and repeat, day after day, until those names were just names.

So he worked.

There was plenty of it, Cross wanted more planes, he’d get more planes, Lok was scrounging everything left in the hangar, the holds, and whatever he could fabricate to add more Frankensteined spacecraft to the roster, even if there were no pilots to fly them. That wasn’t his problem too at least. The eight working fighters were arranged near the mouth of the hangar, their parking spaces cleaned up, each bird almost factory new, ready to go at a moment’s notice. Lok and his crew had worked all night to get them ready, just in case. Arranged in a row along the port side of the hangar further forward were six Valkyries in various states of assembly, each one had its own unique problems. Across from them to starboard was the accumulated piles of parts, piles of junk from the battle damage waiting to be removed, and the equipment from the engineers to repair the armory and facilities damaged by the accidental torpedo discharge when Ghost crashed.

One of the disassembled fighters was Valkyrie 1087, currently up on jack stands, its gutted nacelles lying in a heap just in front of it. Here Lok sat, silently working away on the removed warp core. The fighter had belonged to, he didn’t remember who, but it was recovered mostly intact from the battlefield. The primary space frame was in good shape apart from where the forward cockpit area had been hit by a torpedo and most of the main power systems as well as the weapons were in decent shape. What was not in good shape were the warp nacelles, shredded by either shrapnel or debris, only some of the warp coils and plasma injector equipment could be salvaged, the rest would have to be fabricated or scrounged from somewhere else.

For the moment though, all Lok concerned himself with was removing the primary dilithium crystal from the core. The articulation frame had been damaged, twisted, he wasn’t sure how, but it was causing a problem in getting the crystal free. While dilithium was generally abundant, Theurgy had plenty in stock, the raw crystals required very little refining for the larger cores, the sheer amount of matter and anti-matter run through them that heavily refined crystals did very little in terms of efficiency of the reaction. This was not so for the high performance cores used on the fighters, their crystals required additional cutting, polishing, and furnace treatments to remove most impurities. Thus, the crystals could not easily be replaced, maybe Theurgy would get a new batch now that they were supposedly back with the Federation but Lok still aired on the side of caution as he gently tried to work the clear pink gem from its prison.

With one hand he held a pair of channel locks, their teeth wrapped in a bit of cloth to not scratch the crystal’s surface, while in the other was a screw driver (also cloth wrapped) that he was using to try and loosen the tight grip of the bent articulation frame. Gently he applied pressure to the screwdriver, using it like a pry bark to bend the frame, while his other hand wiggled the crystal in hopes it would slip free. Lok thought he had it and jerked on the crystal, only for the whole articulation frame to slip out of his hands and fall to the deck. He tried to lunch for it but watched almost in slow motion as the assembly flipped over and landed directly onto the dilithium crystal, shattering the unclamped potion into several large pieces. Lok looked at the shards as he felt a buildup of pure rage emanating from his chest.

Unable to contain it he let out a shout that broke the tranquil silence of the hangar and put all his strength into kicking the articulation frame off into some corner as he whipped around and kicked an open toolbox. The tools spilled onto the ground with a metallic clatter, a tricorder that had been sitting on top of the tools bounced across the flight deck shedding pieces of its case as it went.

This only served to infuriate him more. The ferasan whipped back around, spying his next target, the fuselage of Valkyrie 1087. He didn’t even hesitate as he repeated brought both of his clenched fists down upon the metal panel, shouting hoarsely, “FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!”

He stood there for several moments that felt like minutes, his back and shoulders rising in falling as he panted until finally his legs seemed to fail him and he slumped to the ground. Tears filled his eyes, the frustration, the helplessness, always lingering under the surface. Lok wasn’t even supposed to be here. He should have been doing what Starfleet did best, exploring the unknown aboard Perseus. Chief Covington should have been here, not him, Ensign Herrald should have been here, not him, he should have jumped ship when they were over Earth.

Lok inhaled, a ragged breath, then exhaled, his eyes glanced over to the spilled tools, salvation. In moments he was on his hands and knees picking up the mechanical implements and setting them gently back into the toolbox. There was still plenty of work to do and now he needed a new dilithium crystal, there were a few stored away, he just needed to clean up the mess he made first.

So he worked.


Cmdr. (3rd) Hassar al-Zaheer | Arboretum | Deck 22 | Vector 03 | USS Theurgy]
[Show/Hide]

The mood in the arboretum was thick and dour. The crew of Theurgy and other representatives from other ships and even the President of the Federation herself, had all gathered to mourn the dead and say something meaningful. For Hassar and the other vaharrans the whole thing felt strange, death was seen as a normal part of life, if one chose to mourn the passing of someone they knew, it was in private, all matters of cremation and interment of the ashes of the deceased was handled by the monks.Those that followed Kyros understood that for those who maintained a life of balance, death was not the end and instead viewed the loss with optimism.

However, Hassar knew of the customs of humans and several other species from his time with Starfleet as part of their Officer Exchange, many preferred this form of open remembrance, whether they believed in an afterlife or not. Out of respect for their allies, he decided that he and the rest of his Marines would join. Their group stayed near the back of the crowd, standing out in their blue jumpsuits, having not brought proper dress uniforms with them, but they had put on black armbands, suggested to them by one of the crew.

Hassar listened to the speeches that the President and Commander Stark gave, both passionate and emotional, describing the trials that Theurgy and her crew had gone through and those they had lost along the way. Hassar had to admit it was a bit eye opening, he had not realized the extent of hardship that this ship had seen. He couldn’t help but feel reminded of his time in The Fleet, the years of roaming through space. It was difficult to consider back then that they would ever find a place to call home and that one day they would all perish entombed in the last vestiges of their civilization. He often wondered after they encountered aliens, what if they had found the last ship of his people, cold and lifeless, the last vaharran, a skeleton, slumped in the pilot’s seat. He shuddered to think of it, but part of him knew that far back in their history, it had happened, over a dozen ships left and were never seen again.

The end of the President’s speech snapped Hassar out of his wandering mind and he re-focussed on the balcony above while feeling a little embarrassed that he had allowed his thoughts to so thoroughly draw his focus away from this somber moment. Hardly a moment of true discipline.

He stood up straighter and focussed his vision on the group one level up, waiting for the next portion of the service to begin.

Re: Epilogue: They That Shed Their Blood [Day 03 | 1800 ]

Reply #2 –
[ Sylvain Llewellyn-Kth | Arboretum Terrace - Memorial Wall | Deck 21 | Vector 3| USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Brutus @Nolan @ob2lander961 @Dumedion @chXinya @Griff @rae @Stegro88 @RyeTanker @Eirual @tongieboi @Pierce @Tae @Nesota Kynnovan @Hans Applegate @Ellen Fitz @Krajin @P.C. Haring @Eden @joshs1000

Sylvain’s gaze felt hollow as he stared up towards Commander Stark, his tired eyes burning against the harsh lighting of the arboreum, a beautiful room, though the occasion could scarcely afford him a chance to appreciate it. The trees on the floor below him grew surprisingly tall for a Starship, weeping with vines, with verdant canopies that brushed against the glass railing that separated the terrace from the arboretum below. In between the Commander’s words, filling the silences that rippled out from each pause she took, was the sound of trickling water, a gentle noise, peaceful in the face of so much death.

It reminded him of Betazed. The El’nar Institute, more specifically; the way their halls had been so adorned with foliage and plant life, flowers from hundreds of different planets, all regrown on a new world for the purpose of giving comfort to those who were lost… It also reminded him of Starfleet Academy, their flowerbeds and landscaping that stretched out around the campus, undisturbed, or even Captain Yume’s favourite holodeck program, a place on Earth called Kielder Forest. He’d asked her about it once, and she’d said that nature was where life met tranquility.

It was a line that had stayed with him since…

Aside from Betazed and Starfleet Academy, nature had always been far removed from his life; Starships weren’t often so well gardened as the Theurgy’s arboretum, nor was Deep Space Sixteen, and Vulcan was possessed of a very different kind of nature.. He’d considered in his bleaker moments, that perhaps a lack of nature was why he’d always found tranquility to be somewhat lacking in his life… He resolved himself to come here again, if he got the chance, when it was neither so busy nor so bleak, to take the time to fully appreciate the taste of nature held within the room. Sylvain wasn't sure if he found it morose or comforting, that something as simple as moss and bracken had endured the hardship that had claimed so many lives, but either way, he could agree with his old Captain’s words to some extent; there was something calming about the presence of nature.

But for now, the calm was something that he could not take the time to fully absorb. Instead, Sylvain could only swallow drily around his brittle throat, his breathing soft and his mind cloudy, as he continued to listen to Commander Stark’s speech. Or at least, try to listen.

He was tired.

Not the sort of tiredness that made him long for his bed at the end of a long shift, but a harrowing yearning for the peaceful bliss of unconsciousness, and a willingness to let it take him for as long as it saw fit. The Ensign’s eyes felt sunken in their sockets, throbbing against his skull, whilst his stomach was aflood with nausea and uncertainty, a toxic cocktail brewed out of his overwhelming anxiety, unbearable guilt, and the fact that the only ‘rest’ he’d gotten since arriving on the Theurgy, had been when he’d been knocked unconscious and intubated aboard the Euridite. It was an odd counterpoint, exhausted to the very fragment of his sanity, yet also wired to the point of euphoria, his body still aflood with adrenaline and firing nerves, his limbs unable to contain their trembling even as he stood amongst the crowd in the arboretum, feeling like the odd one out in the sea of bodies listening to Commander Stark make her address.

Sylvain had opted for a space as close to the back of the room as possible, far removed from where the Commander and the entourage from the Federation were standing… It felt more respectful, to keep himself out of the way. He’d been aboard the Theurgy long enough to understand that it was different to most of the other ships in Starfleet; they’d been together through the worst of it, and they’d bonded together in a way that many crews never did… He supposed that being the only carrier of a secret that could destroy the entire galaxy, it was natural that the Theurgy had become more than a ship and a crew, but something of a home and a family.

And Sylvain was still a stranger to that family.

Of the hundred-odd names inscribed into the walls around him, there was perhaps only two he would recognise; he’d only spoken with a handful of people since he’d come aboard, and he understood most of them to still be alive. Commander Stark,  Lieutenant Commander Cross, Lieutenant Sh’lann, Officer Lok… And they were all confirmed by the casualty reports to be alive and well; Sylvain had been through the list thoroughly, after all.

In fact, the only names on the list he had any recollection of, were Crewman Core Davison and Lieutenant Katherine MacFarlane.

The former had been a thorn in his side, roping him unwillingly into her subterfuge aboard the Erudite, that had likely spoiled the alliance between the Theurgy and the Savi, but also come to save lives aboard the Hobus Station. In reality, he hadn’t been all too fond of the woman, she was reckless, arrogant, and manipulative, not to mention that she’d broken about seven hundred Starfleet regulations with her shenanigans… Yet, she’d tried, in her own way, to help him see the grittier realities of their situation, to peel back the gilded velvet curtain of Starfleet ideals, that Sylvain preferred to keep tightly drawn, and show him what life looked like when it was the total opposite of everything that Starfleet could be…

Had she been alive, he might have found some smug comfort in the knowledge that she’d know that Starfleet had come through for them, in the end… Now that she was dead, he could only feel a coldness in his chest, an unreasonable anger that she didn’t believe in Starfleet, tempered only by a devouring sadness at the thought that she died with that same disbelief… He could still feel the memory core she’d extracted from the Erudite burning a hole in his pocket; he’d not had the time to hand it off to a superior Officer as of yet. Truth be told, he wasn’t even sure that he wanted to, now that the only person who could explain it away was dead…

And then there was MacFarlane, someone he’d scarcely spoken to, nothing beyond operation critical callouts during the battle with the Romulans. The woman who’d been bisected so close to him that he could smell the blood in the air… Sylavin took another sharp breath in through his nose, pushing that memory of blood from his mind. The Chief Conn Officer vomiting during a memorial service, was not befitting his station as a senior officer.

Instead, he focussed on the words of their Commander, though his mind quickly drifted back to the people around him, and the cloying guilt that haunted his soul.

It was impossible for him to share a space with so many mourning officers, and not bitterly wonder how many of their tears were his own fault…

He was the pilot, after all.

Every move the Helmet had made during the battle, every impact he’d evaded, every hit that they’d taken, had ultimately been decided by him, and himself alone. Any one of those decisions might’ve been the reason that one of the people standing around him now, were missing a loved one, a friend, a colleague… Sylvain knew that a ship didn’t go through battle without taking some hits, but he couldn’t help but agonise over the manoeuvres he’d made as he stood amongst the repercussions. He only knew two names on that wall; how had the Theurgy managed to keep hope alive for so long, when hundreds had passed since they’d first departed Earth…?

Even in his moroseness, Sylvain was aware that he’d done everything he could, everything he could, to keep their ship safe during the conflict… But he found it futile to try and take comfort in such knowledge. He’d analysed every fragment of data available to him during the battle, plotted every manoeuvre with surgical precision, and even delivered some of the most unorthodox flying he’d ever been responsible for… And yet, still, things had happened that he hadn’t anticipated, things that sensors and mathematics couldn’t account for… Perhaps if he were smarter, or more experienced, or less crippled by the gilded phantom of foresight that whispered within his head, things might have turned out differently. Perhaps there would have been fewer names etched into the arboretum walls.

Or perhaps there would be more…

The Ensign twitched his fingers as he listened to the Commander’s words of hope and sacrifice, to the shouts of affirmation from the gathered crowd around him, untied in their loss…

He couldn’t bring himself to join them.

Instead, he pressed his hands softly into fists, closing his eyes in a long blink as he swallowed against the pain it brought him. The pads of his fingertips were scoured raw, the result of hours upon hours spent at his console, a burning in his digits that had had him half expecting to leave trails of blood with each fresh motion he made across the panel… It was nothing, in the grand scheme of things, but Sylvain offered the moment of pain as a silent reminder to those who they’d lost. To those he might’ve gotten killed…

His pain subsided as the words of the Federation President spoke, a woman whom Sylvain had always assumed an address from would be the highest honour in Starfleet… Instead, the boy couldn’t help but feel as though her address had been cheapened by his presence…

He hadn’t endured. He hadn’t sacrificed. And he was no victim…

He’d been on the ship for little over two days; what gave him the right to stand next to those who’d endured so much more than he had? To bathe in the same recollection of dignity and honour that was afforded to them? His dry eyes prickled with a heavy request, and Sylvain denied it, blinking away the tears that threatened to push through his lids, as he stoically straightened his back, his lips forming around a wordless whisper, a silent apology that he hadn’t been better, that he couldn’t have done more. It was an admission of guilt, an expression of appreciation, and an acceptance of fate.

“Thank you, for your sacrifice…”

He spoke silently, addressing nobody, and everybody, all at once.
Currently:
Ensign Sylvain Llewellyn-Kth - Chief CONN Officer - USS Theurgy - [Show/Hide]
Formerly:
Otheusz - Grey Scars Pirate - USS Theurgy - [Show/Hide]
Y'Lev - Syndicate Dominus - USS Theurgy - [Show/Hide]

Re: Epilogue: They That Shed Their Blood [Day 03 | 1800 ]

Reply #3 –
[ Lt. JG Donna ‘Chance’ Petterson | Arborteum Cafe | Deck 20 | Vector 03 | USS Theurgy ]
[Show/Hide]
Donna stood in the Café, gazing down at the assembled crew gathered for the memorial. The pilot wondered what was going through their minds, if their thoughts matched her own.

“How many more of these will there be before its done? And will I live to see them all?”
[ Lt. T'Less | Bridge | Deck 01 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ]
[Show/Hide]
T’Less was on the Bridge, manning the Tactical Station, while the broadcast of the Memorial was being shown on the main viewscreen. She listened as she worked, reviewing the condition of the Theurgy’s offensive and defensive systems.

“How soon will we need them again?”
[ PO3 Lorad | Corridor | Deck 08 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy ]
[Show/Hide]

Lorad shut off the plasma torch as the damaged section of hull frame fell to the deck at his feet. After speaking with Commander Cross he had gone to meet with the Chief Engineer, Commander Arnold, who had given him a kit and put him to work. And there was a lot of work to be done.

“You’re hurting as much as your crew is,” he said to the ship. “But we’ll look after you if you’ll look after us.”
[ CPO Mickayla MacGregor | Arboretum | Deck 22 | Vector 03 | USS Theurgy  ]
[Show/Hide]
Mickayla gazed up at the Federation President as she spoke. She had to admit, the silver-haired woman was a wonderful orator. Her words sparked hope and the idea of a peaceful future for them once the threat was dealt with.

“There is always another threat.”
[ Crewman Samala | The Apache | Hawk-class Runabout | Main Shuttlebay | Deck 11 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ]
[Show/Hide]

The cargo bay was quiet. She’d shut the rear ramp so that she didn’t have to listen to the service that others had broadcasting while they worked. She worked to try and keep her mind occupied. To try and stop the thoughts that kept breaking into her mind.

“Do I stay here or go with my own kind?”


Re: Epilogue: They That Shed Their Blood [Day 03 | 1800 ]

Reply #4 –
[ Lt. Cmdr. Cross | Bridge | Deck 01 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ]
ATTN: @Brutus  @Nolan  @ob2lander961  @chXinya @Dumedion  @Griff  @rae  @Stegro88  @Eirual @RyeTanker @tongieboi  @Pierce  @Tae  @Nesota Kynnovan  @Hans Applegate  @joshs1000  @P.C. Haring  @Krajin  @Eden  @TWilkins

The applause from the arboretum rolled faintly through the bridge speakers and Cross stood at the center of it all like a man waiting for the other boot to drop. He did not applaud.

It wasn't that he lacked appreciation for Commander Stark's address, or for the weight of what had been memorialized. Those words were necessary. The dead deserved their accounting. He understood that better than most people aboard this ship cared to imagine — he had grown up in a Cardassian labor camp, raised alongside eleven other experiments as though sentiment were a resource to be rationed. He had held a dead sister in his mind's eye for fifteen years and never once had a proper ceremony to set her down.

It was not the memorial itself that set his jaw. It was the position. Acting Executive Officer. Temporary, they said. Provisional. A bridge until Captain Ives returned to stand on their own bridge.

If.

The word had the peculiar quality of a hairline fracture — invisible from most angles, catastrophic under pressure. Cross was aware of it the way he was aware of the prosthetic at the end of his left arm: constantly, without drama, a fact that had simply become load-bearing. He had not wanted this. He had wanted tactical. A clear field of fire and clean variables and the comfortable brutality of problems that could be solved by sufficient force or sufficient cleverness. Executive Command was standing in a room full of people who looked to you the way they'd once looked at someone else, and finding yourself acutely aware of the gap. He had filed approximately forty-seven reports since taking the provisional XO's chair, consumed enough raktajino to fuel a small shuttle, and slept in segments measurable in minutes.

The very idea of a proper meditation session felt obscene under the circumstances. His Vulcan half (now whole) demanded it with increasing insistence. His instructors had once described his meditative technique as "enthusiastic." They had meant it as a criticism. He had chosen to interpret it as a compliment and moved on. The structured quiet that meditation promised was not currently available to him. Things aboard the Theurgy were not settled enough to permit it.

His gaze shifted — he was not going to pretend it was unbidden — to the lower quadrant of the viewscreen as the memorial camera swept across the gathered crew. Chief Counselor Hathev stood among them. Whole. Present. Alive. He exhaled through his nose, slowly enough that no one on the bridge would register it.

Their situation was complicated, though the word felt inadequate. He had stumbled into intimacy the way a man might stumble off a perfectly ordinary curb — through a failure to correctly assess the terrain, at speed, with consequences. The aftermath had shifted something in her. He had handled it with the grace of a man whose primary model for romance had been unrequited and unconfessed and eventually overtaken by a transfer order. Aside from a brief exchange in the XO's office earlier that day, he had done nothing. He was, by any reasonable metric, the worst romantic prospect in the quadrant. He was also aware that "I have been doing approximately one hundred other things" was not, in point of fact, an excuse. He had once cauterized his own arm against a heated bulkhead on the Versant. He could probably manage a conversation.

He chose, with deliberate irony, not to examine that too closely.

"Continue standard operations," he said. His voice came out even. It always did, when he needed it to.

The bridge obeyed. He pulled the next requisition report and began to read. Work remained. It was, perhaps, the only reliable constant any of them had left. Starfleet had given his conviction a uniform and a purpose. He would not waste either. Not while there was still something left to protect.
[ Lt. Enyd Isolde Madsen | Shuttlecraft Aegir | Approaching USS Theurgy ]
President Nanietta Bacco's voice filled the cramped cockpit with the particular quality of a person who had learned, at considerable personal cost, the difference between conviction and performance. Enyd recognized it because she had spent years learning the same lesson.

She sat in the copilot's seat with a mug of coffee gone cold — the precise moment she'd stopped registering it as a drink and started using it as something to hold onto unknown. The memorial played across the shuttle's small forward display, a sad display for a memorial she knew she should attend in person but whose duties with the Remans prevented it. She watched it the way she watched most things that mattered: with her full attention and the practiced stillness of someone whose near-eidetic memory meant she only needed to see something once to carry it the rest of her life, whether she wanted to or not.

The President had exercised executive authority. Publicly, decisively, without the luxury of exhaustive debate. Enyd could not fault it. She had watched Castellan Ghemor navigate the impossible arithmetic of Cardassia's rebuilding and watched that arithmetic fail him in the worst possible way. The price of delay, when the situation had already outpaced process, was a cost paid in people. She also knew that every executive precedent was a door held open for whoever came next, and some of those people would walk through it in shoes very different from Bacco's. Precedent never cared about your intentions. Only what it could be used to justify later.

Her grandmother would have had something to say about that. Ida Madsen had raised her on the family ranch in Montana with the philosophy of a woman who had watched enough history to know that good intentions left unexamined had a way of becoming the paving material for very uncomfortable roads. You think, Enyd. You think before you leap, and then you leap anyway because sometimes there's no other option, but you don't get to be surprised by where you land. Enyd had been surprised by where she landed, more than once. She was still working on that.

Alistair. The exchange over comms had been almost funny in its simplicity, which was probably why she hadn't cried. Are you alive? Yes. You? Also yes. She had been sitting with her hands very deliberately flat on the console because her grip had gone tight enough to hurt. He was intact. She was allowing herself, provisionally, to file that under victories. Zark was a harder calculation. Technically dead. Pulled back by Doctor Leux and whatever stubborn will Zark had decided to exercise in the direction of her own continued existence. Enyd was grateful for both. She was also still metabolizing the whiplash — the swing from their recent morning together to the sterile shock of a recovery ward, the particular horror of watching someone who had been laughing be clinically described as having flatlined. She had held it together on the grounds that falling apart in a medical bay was not useful to anyone.

She would process it later. Fate, she had concluded, had a sense of humor that bordered on the pathological. She could either find it funny or find it unbearable, and she had already done unbearable — had spent several months on Vulcan being professionally unbearable, to the point of performing an Orion slave dance on a conference table and punching a Tellarite official. The Forge had burned what remained of that phase clean. She had walked out of it with blistered feet, a talent for gratitude, and a firm grip on the distinction between grief and self-pity. Grief was something you carried. Self-pity was something you set down outside yourself and then stood in the way of.

The docking clamps engaged. Enyd drained the cold coffee in one swallow. Her grandmother had been entirely right about cold coffee on general principle, but Montana practicality held that wasted caffeine was wasted caffeine. The ramp lowered. The Theurgy's familiar atmosphere washed over her — recycled air, faint ozone, and something underneath that she had come to recognize as the ship's own quality, as distinct as a fingerprint. She took stock: antsy, wired, bone-deep tired in a way that had nothing to do with sleep debt and everything to do with the weight of caring about people in circumstances where their continued existence could not be guaranteed.

Her office was waiting. The Reman concerns would not resolve themselves. She would triage, catch the archived memorial minutes while working, drink another gallon of coffee, and make notes her colleagues would find overly thorough and possibly impolite. She had been told her margin notes bordered on editorializing. She had considered that a fair critique and done nothing about it. She straightened her uniform and tucked the empty mug under her arm. The Madsen family thread ran long. She was somewhere in the middle of it, not the beginning and not the end, which meant her job was to carry it forward intact. She could crash later.
[ Corpsman Ehfva Feynri | Medical Ward | Deck 08 | USS Theurgy ]

President Nanietta Bacco's voice moved through the medical ward's overhead speakers like water moving through stone — shaping itself to the available space, finding the cracks. Ehfva listened the way she had been taught before she had been taught anything else: with her whole body, without the need to fill the silence with her own response. Silence, the elders of Okashii Atama had believed, was not absence. It was the form that patience took when it was doing its real work.

She moved between biobeds and kept listening. Vitals checked. Dermal regenerator settings adjusted with hands that were — mostly — her own again. The fur had continued its slow reclamation of territory the Savi had tried to rearrange, and the bone structure had softened toward something she recognized in the deeper part of herself that memory lived in. She was still unsettling to look at, and she did not blame the patients who stared. Curiosity was honest. She had always found honest responses easier to be around than performed ones.

Small acts of attention. A smoothed blanket here. A repositioned pillow there. The elders of Okashii Atama had believed that care was not a feeling so much as a practice, that it lived in the hands before it lived in the heart, and that the hands were where you found it when the heart was too tired to be trusted. Her hands knew what to do.

She would not sleep if she could help it. Sleep was where Keokuk now lived, warm and laughing in the particular way he had laughed when something pleased him genuinely rather than politely. He had laughed like that when she finally showed him all her forms — not the careful partial-revelation she had offered the merchant clan kits while still learning the world was larger than Okashii Atama had suggested, but all of them. He had said she was honored to know all her spirits. Those had been his exact words — his people's framing, his understanding of a body that held more than one self — and she had committed them to the archive of things she could not afford to lose.

Nicoma. The name he had given her in private. We stand together. I do as I promise.

She did not say it aloud. She said it in the space behind her sternum, where it had always lived, and continued her patrol.

She had survived two wars before this one. The Vulpinian civil war — kin against kin, the brutality of people turned against each other by Ferengi interference — and the Dominion War, which had felt, by comparison, almost clean in its enmity. An alien enemy was easier to confront than a familiar face wearing the wrong expression. She had understood this since the first time she emerged from an infiltration mission with blood on her pelt that would not wash clean in the technical sense of the word, and the Kyodai Obi had called her Ha'tIa in that tone of half reverence and half caution. She had accepted both. Neither changed what had actually occurred.

The Savi had been different. They had not simply tortured her. They had turned her body into an instrument against her, her ability to shift reduced to a switch they could throw, a variable in their data set. She had spent twenty years becoming comfortable in every form she wore — built that comfort slowly, with attention, accepting the discomfort of the middle stages as the cost of arriving somewhere solid. They had dismantled it in days. She was building it again, the way a damaged bone is aware of its own mending: not always pleasantly, not always at a useful pace, but proceeding.

Glancing at a vid-screen to see the memorial wall in the background of the display, Ehfva wished there were a memorial wall for the Cayuga. The Theurgy's names carved in stone were real, and their loss was real, and she respected each one. She also knew the names she could not add. The Cayuga's dead had no stone here. She would build her own — not yet, while her forms were still unsteady, since blood painting required the feral state's full sensory access, and to do it wrong would be a greater dishonesty than waiting. But she had already begun composing it in her mind: the pattern, the crimson weight of each stroke. Keokuk at the center. That much she knew. Everything else would take its proper shape around him.

The applause from the arboretum arrived faintly through the ward's speakers. Ehfva adjusted a final setting and stood still in the way she had been taught — not passively, but with full attention directed inward. Her body said: still here. She had survived the civil war and the Dominion and a cold chamber where she had waited for a death that did not come. She did not yet know what shape surviving this particular loss would take when it had finished finding its form. But she knew how to wait. She knew how to work while waiting.
[ Specialist Hirek tr'Aimne | Corridor Outside the Arboretum | Deck 21 | USS Theurgy ]

Hirek stood just beyond the arboretum's threshold with his hands clasped behind his back and listened to a memorial for people he had not known long enough to mourn properly, delivered by a Federation president whose authority over him was precisely as binding as he chose to let it be. Which was to say: not very.

He was aware of the irony. He had spent the better part of his adult life working against the Tal'Shiar's insistence that loyalty was owed to institutions rather than to the people and places that actually deserved it, and here he stood in a Federation corridor exercising the same logic in a different direction. He found this symmetry mildly entertaining. A man who could not appreciate the absurdities of his own situation was going to be very tiresome company, and Hirek had never aspired to be tiresome.

He had not entered because entry implied a claim of membership he had not yet decided to make. The distinction mattered — not as pride, but as accuracy. He was a man who preferred to know precisely what he was standing in before he stood in it. The Uuluma Islands had taught him that early: the reefs around the island looked calm from above and were anything but below, and a free diver who did not read the currents before descending was a free diver who did not come back up. He had learned to commit his weight only after assessment. It was a habit that had kept him alive through two wars and several decades of work that could not be named in polite company.

President Bacco's voice carried the particular quality of someone who understood that the weight of a statement was partly in its silences. Hirek appreciated this. The Tal'Shiar had never needed to learn it, operating on the principle that weight could be applied directly and the silences filled with fear. His mother had diagnosed the error precisely: the Tal'Shiar had confused the mechanism of power with the thing that power was supposed to protect. They had inverted the relationship, pointed the weapon at their own people, and called the result security.

He thought about the islands. Not nostalgia — the Uuluma Islands were still there, still producing the distilled liquor the resident families were famous for, still wrapped in those clear waters where the jumbo mollusk clung to the reefs. He had built his own labs there after the Dominion War, when the College stopped interesting him and something — that Romulan instinct for approaching pressure fronts — told him to be patient. Something else was coming. He had been right. He usually was. This was either a talent or a curse depending on how much warning it provided before the storm arrived.

That had been when uncle  Maec Ethienhad, inadvertently, introduced him to the Madsens. Two of them dead in his family's service. Isa Leigh Madsen, who had chosen her own death over interrogation at the Citadel Val'Theldun. Ernan Lars Madsen, who had died in the rarest kind of human way — deliberately, the calculation running not toward self-preservation but toward what the math required. Hirek had killed Ernan Madsen at Madsen's direction, cleanly and without hesitation, because hesitation would have made it worse for both of them. He had not felt particularly good about it afterward. He had also not felt particularly bad, which said something about the person the Tal'Shiar's interference had helped make him, and which he generally preferred not to examine in detail.

He owed the Madsens a blood debt. He had understood this the moment he learned Lieutenant Enyd Isolde Madsen's name on Qo'Nos — the particular arrested moment when a long equation resolves into something legible. He had kept it because it was accurate, and he had always found accuracy more durable than sentiment as a motivation. Enyd Madsen was, from what he had observed, an extremely inconvenient person to be in debt to. This amused him enormously.

The recent news from home was less amusing: a public declaration on political leanings. His family had carefully maintained neutrality since the horrors had become untenable. His mother rendered sterile by state decree — an old wound his father had never stopped grinding his teeth over. His uncle Maec Ethien dead as he had lived: in precise defiance, with the last laugh arranged in advance. A thoroughly Aimne way to go. But now they were risking themselves and the islands by supporting the new Reman-Romulan government.

The Reman Senator's request also sat in a different compartment — the one he kept for things probably true in their surface framing and certainly true in a less flattering one. Senator Vkruvux was not wrong that a dissenting voice among the Theurgy's crew might prove useful to the emerging Reman-Romulan moment. The Senator was also not wrong that keeping Hirek here, removed from Romulan soil, meant keeping a specific variety of complication at a convenient distance. Both things could be simultaneously true. The question was always which one the person asking you to participate actually cared about.

He had not decided.

He inclined his head slightly toward the arboretum. For the dead. For the Romulans lost in the mess the Infested had made of the Civil War. For Ernan and Isa Madsen, who had no stone here but whose names he kept in a private accounting at least as reliable as any carved wall. For his uncle Maec Ethien, who had died with a smile, which was the correct way to die if one must die in a cause. For the children his mother could have had were it not for the Tal'Shiar.

The corridor held him in its quality of not-quite-darkness, the recycled air carrying the faint green undertone of the arboretum through the closed doors. Hirek breathed it in and thought of open water and the moons of Romulus rising over the islands, and the way his father had said his hidden name — Kejail — as though it contained something worth keeping safe.

He would decide tomorrow.

Re: Epilogue: They That Shed Their Blood [Day 03 | 1800 ]

Reply #5 –
[Ens. Talia “Shadow” Al-Ibrahim | Arboretum | Deck 22 | Vector 3| USS Theurgy] Attn: All
[Show/Hide]
I don’t want to be here.

Of all the days tasks that needed to be done, Talia dreaded walking into the Arboretum the most; she didn’t want to be there – didn’t want to hear the names of the lost – didn’t want to let herself feel the collective weight of all that sacrifice. She’d seen enough during the battle to know that thousands had likely perished. She went anyway, of course; dress uniform immaculate, hair braided into obedience, head held high, shoulders back… just another face amidst a sea of faces staring up at the terrace above.

Commander Stark’s words were inspiring. Talia had never met or even seen the woman, yet found the words heartening and uplifting – enough to rouse the pilot’s attention away from her own cauldron of grievous emotions and treacherous, irrational thoughts – adding her own raw voice to the chorus that answered.
 
Less than a month ago, I was just another broken body frozen in  stasis, Talia reflected, in the quiet lull while the President stepped up to speak. She’d woken and been briefed on everything, had read the reports herself…yet never given herself time to dwell much on what they meant. Three weeks of the most intense training she’d ever endured immediately followed; Talia had thrown herself into mastering the Mk. III with typical obsessive zeal – knowing the odds of survival were laughably low. Her mind flicked through the few friends and acquaintances she’d managed to run into along the way: Medusa, Gramps, Kali, Moody, Duchess, Skittish…Pretty-Eyes.

Hirek was likely long gone; back to his island paradise on Romulus – that dream of a place –reunited with his kin to live out his days in peace. That’s what she hoped for him, at least, refusing to dwell on any other outcome. Talia blinked slowly at the thought, lips twitched into a frown as her mind raced into places she didn’t want to go. She hadn’t seen the official reports yet. Hope remained that the rest of them managed to stay alive…she vowed to find out as soon as possible, and to see them if able, as a profound sense of loneliness covered her like a shroud…

She wished he was there…if only to share a quiet look, or a knowing smile. She missed him; missed the way he aggravated her so easily, and the way he made her feel safe to just be herself around him. That realization alone threatened to spill a tear from her eye.

Dark, watering eyes tracked across the sea of strangers around her.

I shouldn’t even be here. I haven’t endured anything close to what the rest of them have suffered. In her mind, she saw Rawley’s crooked grin while she had spelled it all out…

Six months on the run: contagion, god-like entities, a future sent to destroy them with an entire Task Force hunting them. Treachery from within – yet they fought on in desperation to call out the truth. They fought everything from Starfleet to Savi to Borg. Survived a Klingon Civil War. Lived through horrors I cannot imagine…

Talia's brows creased as she screwed her eyes shut. It felt…cheap…to stand there, on the shoulders of so many that had sacrificed so much only to fall on the eve of accomplishing what they had fought so hard for: the truth. It was out now – the President of the Federation was right there – living vindication for all of it.

I wish you were here, ace, Shadow managed a weak smile, despite it all, thinking of what Ghost would have to say. About bloody time, or something to that effect, she mused.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right…but there was nothing she could do except remember the ones that couldn’t be there – even if she barely knew them. To honor what they fought for, to keep fighting for it. To make damn sure that it was worth it in the end.

Talia bowed her head as the President spoke, breathing deeply to calm herself; swallowing her grief and guilt by force of will – commanding her body to relax and endure the uncomfortable closeness of all the bodies around her. Refusal to break in public warred with the instinct to run from pain, lighting her anger and adrenaline in equal measure.

I don’t deserve to be here, the pilot fumed internally, behind a façade of calm acceptance. But I’ll earn it by carrying on – to whatever end – for all of you. By living, she breathed out, by living, not just surviving.

“The Federation stands with you.”

Talia’s eyes rose at the words, brow knitted, jaw clenched; her whole body trembled with suppressed emotion.

You fucking better, she growled silently.
 
[LT Arven Leux | Med Lab 01 | Main Sickbay | USS Theurgy]

Having woken up hours ago mid-fall from the couch in the CMO’s office, Arven looked and felt like he’d died and forgotten to lay down; dressed in the same uniform he’d left the wreckage of his quarters in – thanks to a very specific individual that he refused to even name, just in case she manifested like the red-headed plague she was – facial stubble well on its way to a ragged short beard – eyes bloodshot but attentive.

A hot goddamn mess, in short.

He focused intently on the simulation data that played across the screens before him, bathed in blue-white light: a difficult case, which had been further compounded by even more unfortunate circumstance…

Two individuals linked by unimaginable atrocity; their bodies violated at the cellular level, to satisfy morbid unethical curiosity. One had already perished, her body unable to cope with the agony. The other…

Well.

Arven worked to find a solution, while his own problems were pushed aside without ceremony; it was easier for him that way, actually. Vulpinian biological processes streamed into digital mimicry of life, natural and unaltered. In the background, barely registered while his mind worked to absorb and understand what was possible and what was not, a female voice addressed the crew, ship-wide.

Arven’s brow knitted in concentration; there was something in her tone that gnawed at him – as if he had forgotten about something important. It was annoying, and terribly distracting; worse than the hours he spent treating the various Vaharran newcomers and their endless questions and commentary.

“This is intolerable,” Leux finally growled, then threw a padd at the speaker nestled into the ceiling above him. “I’m bloody working,” he snapped, then sighed and blinked his tired eyes, trying to work the tension out of his shoulders.

Ah, the damned memorial, his eyes snapped open, only for his head to slowly lower to the terminal in defeat. “Shit.”

Memorial...Memory! Auto-mematic neurosynergistics! His body jerked upright, fingers dancing across the keys in a flurry of command inputs - layered upon layered as the imagery rotated, zoomed, and networked the entirety of the Vulpinian chromataphoric cellular structure – activation pheromones, support nuerophlages – down to the individual protein complex combinations of DNA. It all functioned, in theory, off memory. Intrinsic, instinctual, but memory.

“I cant repair what’s lost…but I can still use what remains,” Arven muttered aloud, utterly consumed by the task at hand. “It wont heal the trauma…but maybe…you’ll get back a little of what you lost. Maybe.”

He worked away, and hoped he was right. He’d lost enough patients already – enough for a lifetime of doubt and regret – if he ever allowed himself to stop and reflect...

But who had time for that?

Re: Epilogue: They That Shed Their Blood [Day 03 | 1800 ]

Reply #6 –
[ Lt.Thane Va’rek ] | Arboretum | Deck 22 | Vector 03 | USS Theurgy ] Attn:  @Brutus  @Nolan  @ob2lander961  @chXinya @Dumedion  @Griff  @rae  @Stegro88  @Eirual @RyeTanker @tongieboi  @Pierce  @Tae  @Nesota Kynnovan  @Hans Applegate  @joshs1000  @P.C. Haring  @Krajin  @Eden  @TWilkins

It had been only hours since his emergency defrosting in the cryobay and the horrible experience of what it must feel like to be buried alive. The Ferasan stood in the walkway that led to the Arboretum near the Romulan, Hirek, and observed the entire spectacle from where he was. As normal, the Ferasan was impeccable in presentation, fur neat, hair spiked as he liked to style it, clan paint on the face, and his uniform pressed to perfection. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back and stared straight ahead at the President and the wall behind the woman.

Grief washed over the crowds like a dark tidal wave as they looked upon the wall and heard the names of those who had passed or were placed into stasis. That darkness threatened to drown all in its path if it weren't for that burst of bright blue of inspiration and determination as the speech went on. It flooded through the darkness with streaks of blue in a stark contrast.

Let the crew mourn, we have work to do here. He turned slowly on one heel and left the arboretum. He had quite a lot to organise and get sorted for his new job. If people saw him as cold for it, that was on them.

[ Lt. JG Dominic Winters | The Den | Deck 16 | U.S.S Theurgy

Atlas sat in The Den while most people had gone up to the Arboretum to pay their respects and listen to the Federation President do her Peacocking and Politics with everyone. He hated it. The words were hollow and always meant nothing when it came to politicians who only to him, said what they said to look good and show they cared. Yet they would never step foot into the arena of war and rather acted like armchair generals.

He'd seen too much death from the Dominion War, where pilots had a low as hell survival rate with the Peregrines. The  Thunderball had a section of Deck 10 dedicated to the Memorial of the pilots and crew of the ship, along with another of fellow vessels. Hell, his name had gone up on there as MIA at one point. Every pilot handled their mourning alone and while Atlas had never met most of these people, he could still feel the weight of their loss on him. Fellow pilots, wolves, the ground crew that was not often shown the appreciation they deserved and earned since they pulled feats of engineering. These people would be down here soon enough after to have their wakes as the different bars and galleys on the ship would be occupied and a few would seek to avoid the pomp of El Presidente lingering around to shake hands and have their faces on the F.N.N.

Instead, Atlas enjoyed an Old Fashioned while in dress uniform at the bar. The alcohol was replicated so it wouldn't get him drunk. His body would process it into sugars faster than he could make them unless he chugged a bottle of real whiskey. He didn't need to be there in his mind, and honestly, it was probably for the best. He'd call the President out for her words, and as far as he saw from the broadcast, it certainly seemed that way. Hopefully the remaining Wolves would come down, or maybe someone would manifest out to tell him off for not being there. Either way, company may be had soon enough.

Re: Epilogue: They That Shed Their Blood [Day 03 | 1800 ]

Reply #7 –
[ Lieutenant Commander Frank Arnold | Corridor outside the Arboretum Terrace | Deck 21 | Vector 3 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Brutus @Nolan  @ob2lander961  @Ellen Fitz  @chXinya  @Dumedion   @Griff   @rae   @Stegro88   @Eirual   @tongieboi   @Pierce   @Tae   @Nesota Kynnovan   @Hans Applegate   @joshs1000   @P.C. Haring   @Krajin   @Eden   @TWilkins

It was a good speech.  That much Frank was sure of.  He looked around and saw everyone dealing with their grief and loss as each one would.  Some wept, others simply stared, seeing only the times, events, and experiences that came with the personal touch of having been there.  His own eyes went up as he sorted his way through the mental filing cabinet and pulled up each of the people he'd lost.  Each one had a story.  They were the main character in their arc of life, and now it had come to a very abrupt end.  His eyes went to the slab of stone that represented the memorial to the fallen on the ship.  It didn't seem to matter what was going on, how much the ship was battered, or how much fighting took place; it felt as if this one monument was untouchable, invulnerable from all the chaos that surrounded it.  The names were too hard to see from where he was standing, and the Chief Engineer had to wonder, would anyone write the stories of the the names that had gone up on the stone face.  His mouth frowned.  The list was getting depressingly long, and it felt like the worst part was there was still plenty of space for more.

His mind went over the litany of issues that still had to be catalogued for repair.  On the whole, it could have been much worse.  Sure the ship had been stretched by all the fire that it had taken, but overall, a lot of the damage was considered minor.  The ablative armour layer had taken the brunt of the pounding when the shields had been knocked out, and a few holes had been punched in the hull; but the critical systems were still intact.  Arguably the worst had been the loss of the transporter inhibitor that was supposed to prevent boardings on the ship.  The inside of the ship was where the worst of the damage and cleanup was coming from.  He would have had more people at the memorial service today, but there were so many little spots that needed replacement and repairing that cumulatively it added up to a huge amount of work.  Power relays, ODN conduits, corridor panelling, doors, control panels, the list of stuff that was normally taken care of during a ship's fitting out needed to be replaced.  All those things added up to a major job. And the bodily fluids from blood loss and ruptured organs!  Engineering teams with respirators were sweeping the ship with Baryon projectors just to get rid of all the biological material.  Things like potted plants were no longer a consideration in someone's quarters.  There was a questionable liquid on it, it got zapped.

The FABs and other shuttle bays on the other hand.  Calling them headaches was akin to calling a supernova a hiccup.  Wreckage and blasted parts everywhere.  At least the structural reinforcing had held there.  He was very aware how close the ship had come to being broken in two from having one of the fighter magazines deciding to self immolate.  There's been barely enough room to get the fighters back aboard, and his thoughts turned sour at that.  There's been enough room to get them aboard because too many had not come back.  The Lone Wolves seemed to live a charmed life, and it had finally caught up with too many of them.  At least their struggle was over, they could rest.

That was a technical matter though and he was accutley aware of the the Andorian near the front.  She was leaning on a walking cane and he felt like a Betazoid in seeing the resentment radiating off her for needing it.  Her department had taken a beating holding the line against the Romulan incursions.  From what he could see, it had helped that security was more soldier than cop at this point, but they'd been pretty liberal with smashing almost everything in sight to incapacitate the Romulans.  Still, the superiority margin in close quarters was never good and many members of Security were either in one of the sickbays, or in the morgue. Case in point was Lieutenant zh'Wann's number 2.  Lieutenant Zark was in sickbay under medical sedation as she recovered.  Word was her surgery had been touch and go for a bit, but she looked like she was going to pull through.  What that looked like when they went off on whatever their next objective was would be anyone's guess . Lieutenant zh'Wann's gaze swept the room as if looking for threats, or maybe it was just to gauge the mood of the crew like he was doing.  Andorian blue eyes settled on human blue eyes for just a moment. A brief moment of respect between two department heads and a shared hardness that had to conceal any grief they were feeling.  More was left unsaid than said, and her chin dipped slightly. Then it was over her attention returned to the President.

He really should be focusing on the dead and remembering who they were, but there was so much work to do.  If they had spirits, the dead's were long gone.  Maybe they'd infused themselves into the ship and would protect them from here on out in their own way.  It was strange notion, and maybe it would give others some solace.  He mainly believed in energy fields, power flows, and the solidity of alloy structures.  That was what kept a ship from falling apart.  There was something to be said though of the collective will of the crew.  Sometimes it seemed that a ship only kept going just because of the guts of the crew.

His combadge beeped and he gave an irritated frown before banishing it.  He hadn't left instructions to not be disturbed, and he was proud that it had taken this long before he had been contacted. A quick tap answered the call. "Yes?"  He replied in an almost mumble. "Sorry Chief, but we need help near the lower FAB, it's.......it's something we need your call on."  The Chief sighed.  As much as he wanted to continue paying his respects, the work had to be done. "Understood. I'm on my way." He replied quietly before slipping out of the alcove of life back into the cold corridors.

[Lieutenant Ida zh'Wann]
The current head of security projected calm as she stood near where Captain Stark would when she finished her portion of the memorial service.  To most, she looked like the was attentive and stone cold. Internally she was appalled and irate. She disliked the idea of being injured, yet it had seemed unavoidable with all the action she'd taken part in to get the Romulans off the ship.  The brig was packed and she'd asked to have as many of the Romulans repatriated as soon as possible. She'd raised the idea of converting a cargo bay into a prisoner holding facility if they couldn't get them off the ship soon enough.  She wasn't sure how the Romulans were taking their current predicament, supposedly being on a ship full of humans was going to do something to their sense of smell, and she had no idea what the issue was, but it was supposed to be pretty vile.

The part that was appalled were the number casualties the crew had taken.  The numbers actually weren't that high, nowhere near as bad as when the Klingons had stormed the ship, but this time felt different as she looked at the rotating holo display showing the portraits of the those lost.  So many of them had seen so much action, and they had survived so much.  Now their time had come and their light had gone out forever.  The image of a cigar chewing smile of the bald Evelyn Rawley.  She didn't know the Wolf that well, but everyone knew that pirate's shit eating grin she gave when she smoked that horrible stoggie.  A large and loud personality, now forever silent.  The blonde Romulan, Valyn Amarik.  She respected the exploits the Intelligence Operative had and the skill needed to pull of the missions that would shift the power of the galaxy.  Now she would affect the galaxy no more, but her accomplishments would live on and had come to fruition.  The fact the President was standing here taking cognizance of what hte ship and its crew had gone through was living proof of it.  The next image faded in and the Andorian couldn't help but grind her teeth.  The stalwart head of Commander Kai Akoni, her boss, and in many ways, her mentor.  While getting her leg fixed, she'd looked over the reports and the video of what had happened to the previous head of Security and from she could see, it was unlikely that anyone would have been able to avoid the attack that killed him.  If there was any additional proof of that, it was the fact the same type of attack had killed Kino Jeen, but at least the weapons chief had taken her attacker with her.  It was a small consolation though and the Andorian's antennae laid flat against her head as she worked to keep her rage under control.  They would be sorely missed and the Zhen blinked once. Spirits keep and bless you Kai Akoni and Kino Jeen as you make your way to the land of ever ending bounty and warmth.  This was thought with a special reverence, but widely offered to all the fallen whose journey was now over while the rest of them carried on the struggle to rid themselves of this insidious menace.

[Chief Petty Officer Dominic Lau | On his way to his new quarters]
He had no equipment baggage or anything to speak of.  All he had at this point was his away team gear that he'd managed to carry with him from Donatra's ship.  He'd turned his rifle over to security much to their bewilderment since he was knew and had a rifle that wasn't registered.  And that was on top of having to play impromptu nurse in a situation he was totally not qualified for as he watched someone literally struggle for life in his hands and almost lose. What a day.  It had taken a bit longer to get the over worked quartermaster to officially register his team, but they were all set.

The Intel Chief looked at the PADD and looked at the doors.  He was almost there, just a few more, and he could have a shower, and get some sleep.  Here we are. Chief Lau thought to himself as he stopped in front of the standard doors and double checked the room number.  Pressing the entry button, the system obediently opened and he entered and his sense of relief evaporated as he looked at the common area.  His figurative hackels started to rise as he saw several items that clearly had Romulan origins.

He quickly tapped his combadge. "Cheung, it's Lau."  The reply was quick but clearly exhausted.

"Yeah Chief? You know, I'd really like a shower and some sleep."

"So do I, but I have a problem and I need you here with your PADD.  I need some precautions put in."

The pause was a bit longer then followed by a sigh. "Understood.  I'll be over in a few minutes."

[Lt (JG) XamotZark zh’Ptrell (Lt. Zark) | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy]
Ensign Valyrk stood with stony poise as she made her rounds.  A few of the other medical staff were at the memorial, and if she were capable of such emotions, she would not have begrudged any of them at all.  A time to mourn was acceptable and would allow them to return to their normal duties with focus. She stopped next to a bed that held a sleeping yet bruised Andorian. Nurse Newberry was next to the still form helping to fluff out her shiny snow white locks. 

"There is no known information showing this course of action will allow Lieutenant zh’Ptrell to recover any more efficiently."

The blonde Asian woman stopped and shot the Vulcan a look, then turned back to arranging the sleeping Andorian's hair. "There isn't any information to show otherwise either."  She said retorted in a huff.  "Besides, Zark has her vanities and her hair is very much a part of her identity, so since it can't hurt, it'll help."

The Vulcan arched an eyebrow inquisitively at the sheer emotional vehemence of the illogical statement.  "The Lieutenant has suffered major trauma and from the reports, barely made it through surgery.  Any recovery will take time."  She paused to let that sink in. "As humans put it, she's lucky to be alive."

Newberry said nothing.  She just kept working.  Ensign Valyrk recognized that the human intended to be stubborn about the task and she crossed to the other side of the bed.  Her eyes gave the medical readout a practiced check.  The stats were on the low, but barely erratic.  If nothing else, it simply indicated that the Andorian needed rest.  She punched a few keys to check the status of the medical dispensary.  All dosages were within normal parameters.

The Vulcan turned to look at the human woman once more and her mind took in all the details of the clearly exhausted nurse.  Bags under her eyes that were going dark, dry and oily skin.  A certain need for support in her stance by leaning on the bio bed.  And she smelled worse than normal. "Nurse Newberry, when was the last time you slept or ate?"

Newberry looked up startled as she'd never really thought about taking a break with all the casualties in their care.  "Uh.....I don't remember ma'am."  She waved a hand almost frantically with each bed being full. "I mean, there are so many.  I'm needed....needed...."

Ensign Valyrk nodded her understanding.  "Consider this an order.  You will take the next 5 hours off.  Go find something to eat, and get some sleep."  The human was torn. Clearly wanting to take the order, but being torn away from duty for the wounded.  "I am not going anywhere nurse.  If there is an emergency, I will comm you."  This seemed to satisfy the human's honour as she nodded her acceptance before patting the sleeping Andorian on the shoulder.  "Yes ma'am."  The Vulcan nodded her acknowledgement and watched the nurse go before looking at her PADD and logging Lieutenant zh’Ptrell's information and moving on to the next bed.

Re: Epilogue: They That Shed Their Blood [Day 03 | 1800 ]

Reply #8 –
[ Lieutenant Reggie Suder | Arboretum | Deck 22 | Vector 3 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @RyeTanker‍  @Brutus‍  @Nolan @Ellen Fitz‍ @chXinya‍ @Dumedion‍ @Griff‍ @rae‍ @Stegro88‍ @Eiural @tongieboi‍ @Pierce‍ @Tae‍ @Nesota Kynnovan‍ @Hans Applegate‍  @joshs1000‍ @Krajin‍ @Eden‍ @TWilkins‍


Silently she stood.  Although the moment did not call for it, the Parade Rest stance felt most appropriate given the circumstance.  Respect needed to be paid, though standing at full attention would draw too much attention to her.  This was not about her, at least not directly.

Someone had once told her that memorials and funerals were not for the dead, but for the living.  The dead were...dead.  What did their corpse care?  No.  Through the dogma the various traditions, the religions, and the customs, Reggie had concluded long ago that they existed for the living.  To give them comfort in a routine in a protocol through which they could say goodbye to their family and friends. 

And she had more than a few to say goodbye to this afternoon.  Her wingman, Wraith, had been killed in the battle.  Troubled though he was, and despite the resentment he had tried, and occasionally failed, to hide over her being promoted over him after he trained her, Logan had been a steadfast pilot and, his insubordination notwithstanding, one of the best wingmen she'd ever had.

Now he was gone. 

So too was Kalil.  The only RIO she'd known since flight school, the other half of 'team Gemini' was dead.  Over the years and through the war they'd worked seamlessly together, their telepathic link being likened to a mini borg collective, one where pure thought was shared and the two worked as one.  Together they'd been formidable, skilled, deadly.  Now Kalil was dead.  And with the death of Team Gemini, Reggie wondered if she ought to consider changing her callsign.  Not sure if it felt appropriate any longer.

But before all that she would need a new RIO, and with Wraith's death, Hunter needed a new pilot.  Reggie had not yet approached the ensign, but she figured Alith would see the logic in the partnership.

What was it about her and Vulcans?

That thought led her to a certain Vulcan on bridge watch, one whom she wished could be there to comfort her now, one whom she longed to see.  They'd had a far more direct conversation before the battle of the Triangle and Reggie was eager... moreso than she realized... to see where the relationship between the two of them could go.  But even that took a back seat to a much more fundamental need... 

She did not want to be alone tonight.

Quietly she tapped out a quick note to T'Less...

2030 hours
My quarters
casual.

She was about to hit the send button when another thought hit her.

Please...

She left the note unsigned, knowing that the message header would identify her as the sender, and tapped the "send" button as she turned her attention back to the memorial service already in progress.

[ Lieutenant Kestra Pren | Quarters | Deck 7 | Vector 1 | USS Theurgy ]

She stayed away. 

Not because she didn't respect the sacrifice of those who had died.  Quite the opposite.  She respected it more than anyone knew and based on the looks she was already getting from the various crewmembers that passed her, she needed to keep a low profile aboard until she had the chance to talk to Lt. Suder, and Captain Stark.  For her to attend this funeral service would cause a hell of a spectacle and distract from the real purpose. Allowing this crew to say goodbye to their colleagues.

They weren't her crew, at least not yet.  They would be soon enough, but she hadn't seen even a meager fraction of the hell they had.  It wasn't her place to attend.

So, instead she remained in her quarters, unpacking and setting up.  Her tactical vest had taken a beating on the Romulan station, but it was nothing she couldn't get repaired in time.  Plus from what she'd come to understand, that gear was ancient tech compared to the gear on board Theurgy and she looked forward to the formal training.

She'd packed light, of course, with most of her off duty clothes having been stored as replicator patterns on an isolenear chip and while she watched the memorial from the wall mounted monitor in her quarters, she worked to replicate and put away her wardrobe.  But even as she worked, she knew that her job was just getting started and the hardest part was the first thing she had to do....

She had to introduce herself to Reggie Suder.

[Lt. CMDR Hathev | Chief Counselors Office | Deck 11 | Vector 2 | USS Theurgy]

It was illogical for the Chief Counselor not to attend the memorial service in person, but she had the duty and it would have been inappropriate for her to force a subordinate to take her place so she could attend.  Crew morale was served by these events and the emotional needs of the many far outweighed her own psychological needs.  

It was only logical.  

Yet she was not immune to the proceedings going on in the Arborettum.  As the the live feed from the official memorial service streamed into her office terminal, Hathev privatly held a memorial for the fallen in the Vulcan tradition.  No not all of the recently deceased were Vulcan, but still she felt their loss, felt the need to honor them, and given everything that had happened, decided that the grounding of the familiar was the most appropriate for her own well being.

It also gave her time to reflect. 

Not only had she lost a Kal'Toh partner in the form of Ensign Cir'Ce but she'd also lost a trusted friend and Hathev felt that loss deeper than any of the others.  Hathev had not come aboard the ship willingly, but it had been a mind meld with Cir'Ce that convinced her of the truth and caused her to decide to stay on board, to be branded as a traitor, and now pardoned by President Bacco.

The Vulcan found her thoughts returning to Cir'Ce, to their first Kal'toh game together.  Cir'Ce had observed that the Federation's core values had eroded, that it's mission of peace had given way to a mission of war.  She had likened the change in stance to a cancer that needed to be excised and although Hathev had reasoned that it was a necessity of the time, she now wondered if the Ensign was more right than she'd initially been given credit.

Hathev's time in the Starfleet had cost her dearly.   She'd lost her son, her son's father, her relationship with her fiancé, and her fiancé.  For a time she'd lost her freedom within the Federation, accused along with the rest of the crew of crimes she had not comitted, and now pardoned...excused for haiving committed those crimes in the first place.  Hathev saw it for what it was...

Political posturing.

Even now, with the truth blindly in front of them, the Federation could not admit they had been wrong.  At least not publicly.  The Theurgy crew had seen the truth, had stood against it, been the only one.  For their actions they had been branded as traitors and now that the corruption had been excised they had been pardoned.    A pardon should never have been in the discussion.  The charges should have been dropped, their records expunged and frankly, the crew was owed a formal apology.  But instead of an apology and a dropping of charges as was deserved, they were pardoned.  

Forgiven for the implied guilt of crimes that had never occurred in the first place.

It disgusted her and she realized he wanted no part in it.

She still had a job to do, and she would see the Theurgy's mission out to it's conclusion.  But when all was said and done, and if she survived, Hathev was no longer sure she would desire to find a home within the Federation.

Re: Epilogue: They That Shed Their Blood [Day 03 | 1800 ]

Reply #9 –
[ Lt. Commander Alana Pierce | Arboretum Terrace | Deck 21 | Vector 3| USS Theurgy]
[Show/Hide]
ATTN: @Brutus @Nolan @ob2lander961 @Ellen Fitz @chXinya @Dumedion @Griff @rae @Stegro88 @Eirual @tongieboi @RyeTanker  @Tae @Nesota Kynnovan @Hans Applegate @joshs1000 @P.C. Haring @Krajin @Eden @TWilkins

Alana sat in the arboretum following the ceremony, looking at the various names. Some she knew from her short time aboard. Others she’d never had the privilege to meet. It was a sobering moment that the passage of time had, especially in this century. Lives didn’t stick around much, sadly, with the war-torn era. Even the USS Eagle faced her ultimate demise, albeit bravely, and breathed new life into Pierce for the first time since arriving in this century.

Valyn Amarik, Jonathan Byrne, Scruffy LeBlanc, and quite possibly others she’d forgotten in the days prior.

She exhaled and continued to think internally, the methodical multitabbed mind of her feminine brain was on overdrive as she contemplated what was ahead of them and likely unexpected. All the while, thinking she was glad that she lived in the previous skirmish despite the uncertainty of the capture and rescue.

The task ahead would be selecting a new deputy Intelligence Officer to help co-lead in her absences or in the event the unexpected happened, as it had with Fisher not that long ago. Even the captain was expendable, although thankfully, he was placed in stasis.

Her dress uniform was crisp. Much better than the previous uniform she wore during the fight, but the pain still resided from the torture and the mental scars. For all of them. The only thing she wanted more than anything now was normalcy. And exploration.

But that was an unlikely outcome given the facade that played out. They were “safe” for now, but she couldn’t help but feel that changes and not for the better were coming.

Alana thought of the president’s words and the camaraderie of the situation. She felt that no matter what the Federation faced, the infiltration would always happen. We had multitudes of it in the past, and likely to see it again in the future.

A twinkle of promise and a future at the president’s words, however, stuck with her about, “Let history record that when the Federation’s voice was stolen, the crew of the USS Theurgy carried it—through fire, through exile, and back into the light.” She stepped back from the railing. “The Federation stands with you.”

Time would tell, but for now, she needed a drink before duty called once again. She got up from the ceremony and headed out after one last look at the wall of the lost before entering the corridors once again as she contemplated their continuing mission.
She figured she might as well get some work done, look into the intel network, and see what she could dig up in the meantime. THankfully her office in the intelligence department had a replicator. Pierce knew this was going to be a long day.


[ Lt. JG Ashley Kerina [Show/Hide]
| Kerina's Quarters | Junior Officer’s Quarters | Deck 8 | Vector 2 | USS Theurgy]

Sitting in her quarters, Ashley Kerina was tired from the events of the day and knew she would be reporting for actual duty soon enough as her transfer took place. There was a lot of mystery surrounding the Theurgy that she was unaware of. It was a new ship and certainly the largest she’d been assigned to.

Although her mission didn’t really bear much fruit in the search for her parents, she knew that it was a mystery she’d likely have to continue into the future. For now, she was needed here with the multitude lost in the fights, skirmishes, and just crazy nature of their clandestine adventures. Glancing around her quarters, she had very little to decorate them with since most of her belongings were back on Earth in her permanent locker, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t get them at some point. For now, she lay on her bed thinking about how she was going to help in their fight and make a difference.


[ Ensign Lauren Pierce | Arboretum | Deck 22 | Vector 03 | USS Theurgy ] [Show/Hide]

Standing at the wall, she saw the list of names. Some she knew and others she didn’t. She could see Alana in the other area of the room, looking from a distance and likely soaking the data in. For her, it was more of a personal nature. Specifically with regards to Scruffy. She’d had a rather interesting…opportunity…with him and Tessa one late night a few weeks ago. It was lovely, sad as he perished on board the derelict Constitution Refit, the USS Eagle.

The very ship she knew Alana served on, and she’d visited on the holodeck recently. Placing her hand on the wall, she saw so many other names as well that she’d never known. It was sad to say the least. She could only imagine how Tessa felt, or would feel if she were in the room right now.

Lauren took the opportunity to talk to Alana; however, she was already gone. As she finished her moment of silence for the lost crewmates, she headed back to her quarters as she waited for the next duty cycle on the bridge.


Lt. JG Tessa May Lance | Flight Deck | Fighter Assault Bay | Deck 16 | Vector 03 | USS Theurgy]  [Show/Hide]

Tessa sat in the cockpit of her fighter in deep thought. Honestly, she was trying to get some much needed sleep after the recent battle that they were still feeling the ravages of. She’d spent some short time at the wall and heard the report that Scruffy was gone now, too. It seemed she was destined to be a survivor. One who also had terrible luck with lovers. Each one of her last several had died during a mass battle. Something that didn’t sit well with her.

She punched her cockpit wall while still seated. Lance was the misfortune they were dealt. Despite trying to fly recklessly in the past several fights and take herself out with the others, she was still here. Still living on in their sacrifices. The loss of too many friends was slowly taking its toll on her psyche, and it wasn’t good. Fractures in the mindmeld were forming that helped stabilize her mental state. Not uncontrollable but not helpful either.

Gritting her teeth, she fought back and lost the battle with the tears in her face and blubbered like an idiot. Each person she got to know since coming aboard or got really close to was now dead. Where did that leave her? Was that why she flew fast, violently, and recklessly? Was that why she trained newbies on the Borg battle and other major losses to show them that it was not a game and that each decision counted?

GoldenEye decided to lock herself in her cockpit and take a much-needed nap as she contemplated what was going to happen to her future.

Re: Epilogue: They That Shed Their Blood [Day 03 | 1800 ]

Reply #10 –
[ Rear Admiral Elena Al-Tulan |Flag Bridge | USS Thaxan ]
ATTN: @Brutus @Nolan  @ob2lander961  @chXinya  @Dumedion  @Griff  @rae  @Stegro88  @Eirual  @RyeTanker  @tongieboi  @Pierce  @Tae  @Nesota Kynnovan  @Hans Applegate  @joshs1000  @P.C. Haring  @Krajin  @Eden  @TWilkins 

Rear Admiral Elena Al-Tulan had a carefully cultivated non-expression as she watched the main viewscreen inside the Thaxan's flag bridge. Around her, the quiet urgency of a working command center continued uninterrupted. Staff officers bent over consoles, analysts compared incoming telemetry, and the low murmur of clipped status reports filled the compartment.

Just because the President of the Federation was in the neighborhood didn't mean work stopped. If anything, it meant the opposite. Especially when that Head of State appeared determined to enter a volatile operational theater with minimal escort and a penchant for making historic announcements in the middle of it.

"Admiral," one of the yeomen called out.

Al-Tulan turned. "Report."

"Captain Chan is on station and transmitting updates. We're close enough for real-time."

She nodded once and faced the viewscreen again. "Good. Put up visual and position information, then patch in."

The display shifted. A tactical grid resolved across the screen, icons marking fleet positions across the region surrounding the battered but still resolute silhouette of the USS Theurgy. She had reviewed the ship's specifications before arrival — the Theurgy-class prototype, experimental multivector dreadnought, built jointly at Antares Shipyards and Utopia Planitia, commissioned in 2378 and gone rogue within two years. On paper it was an asset that should never have been allowed to operate independently this long. In practice it had, somehow, managed to be the thing standing between the Federation and an infiltration that had reached all the way to the Commander-in-Chief's office.

Sensor overlays rolled in layers — Starfleet vessels, Klingon allies, Romulan signatures flagged as friendly for the moment. Repair traffic. Medical transfers. The lingering aftermath of a war that had nearly gone entirely unseen. Then the tactical overlay minimized and the broadcast feed expanded to full frame.

Commander Natalie Stark stood at the railing of the Arboretum terrace, voice raw with conviction as she addressed the gathered crew. Al-Tulan watched without speaking, arms folded behind her back in a parade-rest stance she had held for so many years it had become instinct. Around her, a few officers slowed in their work just enough to glance up. No one spoke.

They listened as Stark spoke of sacrifice. Of exile. Of a ship that had been hunted across Federation space by its own fleet — by Task Force Archeron, led by Admiral Sankolov, a name that sat in Al-Tulan's recent memory like a splinter she hadn't yet found the edge of. She had received the same simulcast the rest of the fleet had, the real one that Captain Ives had forced out through Starbase 84's Romulan defense signaling system before Sankolov's ships had driven them into the Azure Nebula. She had read the intelligence summaries that followed. She had looked at the list of confirmed Infested within Starfleet Command — Admiral Victor Bordson, Fleet Admiral D'Com, Admiral Herthum — and then at Sankolov's name sitting alongside theirs.

She had commanded long enough to recognize the cost of holding a line no one else knew existed.

Her eyes flicked to the casualty summary still open on a secondary display. The numbers from the Battle of the Apertures alone were stark enough. Half of Task Force Archeron lost to a Borg tactical cube — a battle Sankolov had knowingly sent them into by suppressing the USS Ark Royal's warning. He had deleted the message. Let his own ships die rather than reveal that the Infested had already known the Borg were coming. Al-Tulan had read that particular detail twice, with the same expression she gave subspace anomalies that didn't resolve into anything she could classify.

Some things could not be processed efficiently. They could only be filed and returned to later.

When Stark's voice finished rising over the roar of her crew, the bridge of the Thaxan remained quiet for a long moment. Then the broadcast shifted. President Nanietta Bacco stepped forward. Al-Tulan's expression did not change, but a faint tightening at the corner of her eyes betrayed her attention sharpening. The President spoke clearly. Firmly. Without hedging.

Pardon. Vindication. Reforms. An acknowledgment, spoken publicly and on record, that Starfleet Command had been compromised at its highest levels. That the crew of the Theurgy had been right. The Admiral listened to every word.

Behind her, Commander Se-Vijura  — her chief of staff— quietly exhaled. "Well," he murmured, "that's going to cause a storm."

Al-Tulan didn't take her eyes off the screen. "Yes," she said calmly.

The Federation stands with you.

A ripple of applause rose from the memorial crowd. On the Thaxan, the bridge remained disciplined and silent.

After a few seconds, Al-Tulan spoke again. "Signal Captain Chan. Maintain observation posture. No changes to patrol assignments."

"Yes, Admiral."

She watched the screen a moment longer before turning away. The pardon would ignite half the Council chambers on Earth before the hour was out. The Vulcan delegates would call it procedurally unconstitutional. The Tellarites would demand a formal review. And somewhere out there — his flagship's position unknown, some of the remains of Task Force Archeron unaccounted for since their retreat from the Azure Nebula at maximum warp — Sankolov was still out there. Still Infested. Still calculating.

That was the detail the memorial broadcast couldn't touch. The President had drawn a line under one chapter. The chapter involving an admiralty that had deleted distress calls, suppressed Borg invasion intelligence, and spent months hunting the one ship trying to stop them. But lines drawn under chapters didn't erase the people who had written them.

She had fought long enough to know something else. Sometimes command required choosing the least stable ground because it was the only ground left to stand on.

"Flag staff," she said evenly. "Prepare a strategic brief for Starfleet Command. Full analysis of regional stability following the broadcast." A pause. "Include the political projections. And flag the Sankolov situation separately. I want a dedicated section on Task Force Archeron's last known position and estimated dispersal vectors."

Her yeoman hesitated. "Admiral — do you believe he'll move against the Theurgy again?"

Al-Tulan considered this with the economy of expression that thirty years of command had refined to near-art.

"I believe," she said, "that an Infested admiral commanding an Odyssey-class dreadnought does not simply stop. He adapts." She turned back toward the viewport. "Which means we need to be further ahead of him than we currently are." She clasped her hands behind her back and watched the stars. "Get me that brief."

[ Admiral Sankolov | Undisclosed Command Vessel | Strategic Operations Chamber | Federation Space ]

The broadcast played across the wall display. Admiral Mikhail Sankolov stood alone in the dimly lit chamber, hands clasped behind his back, and listened to the final words of President Nanietta Bacco.

The Federation stands with you.

The memorial crowd applauded. Sankolov smiled. It was not a pleasant expression.

"Magnificent," he murmured.

The recording ended. The screen dimmed. For several seconds, he simply stood there, turning the moment over with the particular quality of attention his kind gave to new data — complete, unhurried, processing at a level the host body's original architecture could not have managed.

The President had done it herself. No covert maneuvering required. No subtle manipulation. With one sweeping declaration, she had pardoned the most operationally disruptive crew in Starfleet history — without Council approval — in front of the entire Federation. She had named the compromised admirals. She had said the words parasitic infiltration in public, in front of cameras, on the record. She had made the conspiracy visible.

He found this exquisite.

There was a specific pleasure in watching the Federation's openness operate as the mechanism of its own destabilization. The simulcast had been a problem — he still felt the particular cold quality he associated with the Theurgy's seemingly inexhaustible capacity to find technical solutions to impossible situations. Captain Ives had forced the broadcast through Starbase 84's Romulan defense signaling array. Unprecedented. Resourceful. Deeply inconvenient.

And yet.

He had worked in this particular darkness long enough to understand that disruption was not defeat. The Infested did not operate on the Federation's timeline. They did not require a single clean victory. They required pressure, fracture, the slow accumulation of institutional damage that no memorial service and no presidential address could repair. He had watched the Federation argue about the Theurgy for over a year. He had watched it question its own admiralty, its own command structure, its own founding principles. That argument did not stop because Bacco had drawn a line under it. It metastasized.

Behind him, a secondary display scrolled intelligence updates in steady columns. Political reactions. Council communications already fragmenting across subspace. The Andorian delegates calling the pardon procedurally unconstitutional. Tellarite representatives demanding a full Council review of executive authority. The Breen sending cautious diplomatic queries about Federation stability. The Klingon High Council watching.

Sankolov chuckled under his breath. Let them watch.

He walked toward the panoramic viewport and considered the specific shape of what had just occurred. Task Force Archeron was, for the moment, scattered. He had made the correct tactical assessment at the Battle of the Apertures — a detonating Omega Molecule device was not a negotiable threat, and the Theurgy's crew had demonstrated more than sufficient willingness to use one. Retreat had been the logical choice. The host body had experienced something akin to reluctance at the order, and he had noted it as data on what remained of the man called Sankolov, without finding it particularly relevant.

What remained relevant was the Archeron herself. Odyssey-class. The most capable tactical platform in the current Starfleet inventory — built, with characteristic Federation optimism, as both dreadnought and explorer. She was intact. Her crew was intact. The half of Task Force Archeron that had not been lost to the Borg tactical cube in the Azure Nebula remained operational, though seemingly dispersed at the word of the president. She only thought she’d had the last word there.

He thought briefly about the Ark Royal. About the message he had deleted. About three hundred and forty-seven officers who had died because he had made a precise calculation about what information could be allowed to reach the surviving half of the task force and what could not. The host body had filed this in a compartment that was still present but no longer operational in any meaningful sense. The Infested did not mourn their tools. They repurposed them, or they did not.

The Ark Royal had been a tool. Its crew had been variables. The Borg's arrival had been a known factor he had used to reduce Task Force Archeron to a size and composition that was more manageable for his actual purposes. The mathematics were clean. The mathematics were always clean, when you removed the parts of the equation that the host body's residual architecture insisted on calling people.

"Admiral." An aide's voice through the intercom, cautious in the specific way that people who served him had learned to be cautious. "The Council channels are erupting. Vulcan delegates demanding a procedural hearing. Tellarite representatives calling it unconstitutional."

"Of course they are." He did not turn from the viewport. "Log the reactions. Cross-reference with our assessments of which delegates are most susceptible to sustained procedural pressure."

"And the Theurgy, sir? Shall I begin compiling intercepts from the region?"

Sankolov considered this. The Theurgy was, at present, surrounded by allies. Klingon vessels. The remains of whatever Romulan forces had aligned with the new faction. A Federation president with a penchant for historic gestures and the security apparatus that accompanied her. A direct move against the ship in this operational environment would be, as his host body might once have assessed it, tactically inadvisable.

What the situation called for was patience. And the particular kind of patience that looked, from the outside, like absence.

"No," he said. "Not yet."

He had watched the Theurgy disrupt operation after operation. Task Force Archeron disabled by Trent's program and two defectors in a runabout. The Battle of Starbase 84, where they had forced the simulcast through before he could prevent it. The Azure Nebula, where they had destroyed three Borg cubes, closed the Apertures, and detonated an Omega Molecule rather than allow capture. They had gone to Qo'noS and interfered in the Klingon succession crisis. They had uncovered the Savi Scions' Hobus operation. They had, somehow, accumulated a crew of people who had every reason to be broken and had instead become something considerably more durable than broken.

He respected this in the cold way that the Infested respected obstacles. Every defeat had refined the Theurgy. Every operation disrupted had forced adaptations. The ship had not gotten weaker. It had gotten harder to predict.

This was, in its way, useful data. You learned more about a system from its resistance than from its compliance.

"Every loss teaches us," he said, more to himself than to the empty chamber. "Every defeat forces evolution."

He turned from the viewport, and the darkness of the chamber caught the pale reflection of the stars in his eyes — bright, cold, utterly without warmth. His eyes moved to the last known position marker for the USS Theurgy on his tactical display. Still there. Still moving. Still, against every reasonable projection, intact.

"Enjoy your memorial."

And somewhere in the recycled dark of an undisclosed vessel holding position at the edge of sensor range, the USS Archeron waited, patient as the nameless thing that looked out through Sankolov's eyes.

Two steps ahead. As they had always been.

[Senator Vkruvux and Senator Belas | Romulan Senate | Private Anteroom | Romulus]

Between the morning and afternoon sessions of what had so far been a thoroughly exhausting day, Senator Vkruvux had retreated with Senator Belas i'Mirek tr'Rehu to one of the smaller antechambers that lined the Senate's outer ring — rooms designed for exactly this kind of conversation, which was to say the kind that could not be had in the chamber itself without thirteen competing agendas inserting themselves into every pause.

The Senate building was, as it had always been, a masterpiece of controlled intimidation. High ceilings. Cold stone. Lighting calibrated to make everyone present feel simultaneously significant and observed. Vkruvux had spent enough years in these rooms to have stopped noticing the architecture, which he considered one of the more useful things his career had given him.

The wall display was tuned to the Federation broadcast. The memorial played in the crisp, slightly artificial quality of a long-range transmission, the arboretum's living green rendered in flattened light, Commander Stark's voice arriving with the fractional delay of subspace relay.

Belas stood with his arms folded within the flowing sleeves of his robes, his sharp eyes studying the human crew gathered around the memorial wall. Outside the anteroom, the sounds of the Senate reassembling carried faintly through the stone — the murmur of aides, the measured footsteps of colleagues who had not yet noticed that everything had changed this morning or were still deciding how to respond to the fact that it had.

The room remained quiet until President Bacco began speaking.

Vkruvux finally broke the silence. "She is bold," he said.

Belas inclined his head. "Or reckless."

"Both."

They watched as Bacco spoke openly of infiltration within Starfleet Command. Of the long road the Theurgy had traveled. Of rebuilding.

Belas' lip twitched faintly. "The Federation does not normally admit weakness so publicly."

"No," Vkruvux agreed. "But humans have always possessed a strange relationship with vulnerability. They sometimes mistake it for strength."

Belas gave a soft, skeptical sound.

He had read the intelligence summaries on the Theurgy's crew with more interest than most of his colleagues had found warranted. Survivors of the Endeavour, destroyed at the Azure Nebula. Officers drawn together through channels that ran through a Starfleet Intelligence director who operated under the codename King.

The broadcast ended. The applause from the gathered crew carried through the anteroom's speakers, faintly incongruous against the cold stone of the Senate building. Neither Romulan spoke for several seconds.

Then Belas turned from the screen. "Our talks this morning did not carry the same enthusiasm," he said. "And Colonel Xiomek reported much the same from his talks with the President and Theurgy diplomats."

Vkruvux allowed himself the faintest smile. "No."

The Federation's response to their proposals had been cautious in the way Federation responses were cautious when they were attempting to appear open-minded while running a simultaneous risk assessment. Trade corridors. Scientific exchanges. Joint reconstruction efforts along the Neutral Zone's inner edge. For the first time in recorded history, a Romulan political faction had brought these proposals to the table in good faith, and the Federation had responded with the diplomatic equivalent of careful consideration.

"Suspicion is understandable," Vkruvux said evenly. "For millennia we cultivated it."

Belas paced toward the narrow viewport that overlooked one of the Senate's inner courtyards. The light was the flat grey of a Ch'Rihan afternoon. "Still. We expected more curiosity."

"The Federation sees chaos in our house," Vkruvux replied. "Rival claimants. Broken fleets. Intelligence services that, within recent memory, attempted to trigger the Hobus Star through Savi Scion cooperation. They are not wrong to be cautious." He spread one hand slightly. "The question is whether caution calcifies into policy before we have had time to demonstrate otherwise."

Belas nodded. "Stability must come first."

"Yes." His gaze drifted back to the frozen final image of the memorial on the display — the crowd, the living wall, the President stepping back from the railing. He thought of the Continuing Committee, now a memory. Of the Tal'Shiar's fractured infrastructure, dozens of operations still running on institutional inertia with no one left to rescind the targeting orders. Of the Senate chamber, thirty meters away, currently occupied by colleagues who had spent their careers under a system that was gone and had not yet decided what they were building in its place.

"The humans mourn openly," he said thoughtfully. "They show the galaxy their wounds. It is effective."

Belas gave him a sidelong glance. "You are considering political theater."

"I am considering perception." He straightened. "We are the first Romulan leadership in centuries to seek cooperation rather than dominance. When we return to the negotiating table — and we will return — we will do so not as supplicants. But as partners whose stability cannot be questioned." His voice hardened in the way a blade hardens when it finishes cooling. "Which means we rebuild first. We bring the warlords into alignment. We address the Reman question as a governance issue rather than a security issue. And we give the Federation time to finish arguing about today's broadcast before we remind them that we are still here."

Belas watched him for a long moment before nodding. Through the stone wall, the Senate was reassembling. The afternoon session would begin shortly. There were votes to be taken, positions to be navigated, and a new Romulan world to be argued into existence one procedural motion at a time.

Outside the narrow viewport, Ch'Rihan's sky held its familiar grey.

[ Ambassador Elim Garak | Arboretum Terrace | USS Theurgy ]

Ambassador Elim Garak stood at the edge of the gathered crowd and watched the applause.

He was very good at watching. It was, after tailoring, the skill he had cultivated longest and most carefully, and he had always found — somewhat to his own amusement — that the two were not as different as people assumed. Tailoring required the same quality of attention: the precise reading of how a person carried themselves, what they were compensating for, what they wished to project and what they could not quite conceal. The crowd before him was, in this respect, a particularly rich piece of work.

He observed it with the warm, slightly distracted expression he had long ago perfected for rooms where he wished to appear engaged without appearing to be cataloguing anything.

He was cataloguing everything.

Commander Stark had spoken well. Better than well — she had spoken with the raw quality of someone for whom this was not performance, and that quality was, in Garak's experience, the most persuasive kind precisely because it was the hardest to manufacture convincingly. He had known excellent liars in his career. He had been one of them. But there was a register of truth that even the most accomplished dissembler could not quite replicate, and Stark had found it. The crew had responded to it the way people responded when they recognized something they had been carrying without being able to name it.

President Bacco had then done what she did, which was to make a decision in public that should have been made in private, and make it with such conviction that the distinction between the two temporarily ceased to matter.

The Federation stands with you.

Garak had allowed himself a small, private breath at that. Not of relief, exactly. Something more complicated than relief.

He was, by the President's own admission, here as a witness. As a representative of the Cardassian Union's current administration and as someone who had received the real simulcast — had been trapped on the USS Venture when it arrived, unable to act, unable to verify, filing it with the particular frustration of a man who had spent thirty years understanding exactly what was needed and finding himself, through circumstances both explicable and inconvenient, in positions where he could not immediately do it. He had plans set in motion. He had affiliations with Director Anderson that went back further than most people knew, and which he intended to maintain with the same quiet deniability that had served him in all his previous professional arrangements.

He watched the crowd applaud and thought, not for the first time today, that he was perhaps the only person in this arboretum whose first response to the President's words had been a concern that they had moved too fast. He had said as much to no one, because there was no one present to whom saying it would have been useful rather than alarming. But he thought it, with the clarity of a man who had spent decades learning the difference between a victory and a liability dressed in victory's clothes. He knew his hesitancy made him a bit of a hypocrit after encouraging the president to look after her own as well.

But the Infested were not gone. This was the fact that the applause was cheerfully declining to grapple with. The Infested were exposed — at Starfleet Command's highest tier, yes, publicly, on the record — but exposure and elimination were not the same thing, and Garak had spent enough of his career in spaces where that distinction was the only distinction that mattered to feel its absence here with some acuity. They did not yet have a broad-spectrum method of identifying compromised individuals. They were addressing each case as it emerged, which was the intelligence equivalent of bailing a flooding vessel with a cup while congratulating yourself on finding the leak. Sankolov was unaccounted for. The Archeron was unaccounted for. The Infested were adaptive — the Theurgy's own record demonstrated this with almost tiresome regularity — and the one thing Garak knew about adaptive threats was that they found the exposure useful.

He had watched Castellan Ghemor be open. He had watched Ghemor build bridges, extend good faith, allow his alignment with the Federation to be visible enough that the people who wanted him gone had a clear target to aim at. He had been, Garak reflected, a genuinely good man in the specific and ultimately costly sense of that phrase. And in 2379, someone had put a knife in him for it. The official story had been political rivals. The actual story was considerably less clean, as actual stories tended to be.

The Federation's instinct was always toward the light. Announce it. Acknowledge it. Stand in front of cameras and say the true thing loudly enough that it became a fact the record could not revise. Garak understood the logic. He even admired it, in the way that you could admire a philosophy while recognizing that it was going to get specific people killed.

His philosophy was different. His philosophy had always been different, which was why he had spent the better part of a decade running a tailor shop on a space station and telling anyone who asked that he was just a simple tailor with a smile that somehow never quite convinced anyone. The things worth protecting were best protected in the dark, by people whose hands were already dirty, who had already made the calculations that the good and innocent were not equipped to make. Let the Federation Council argue about executive authority. Let the memorial stand and the names be carved into living wood and stone. All of that was necessary. All of that served a function. The crew of the Theurgy had earned every moment of it.

But the real work — the identification of the remaining Infested, the quiet mapping of which assets had been compromised, the patient architecture of countermeasures that could not be deployed in the open because deploying them in the open would tell the Infested precisely where to look — that work did not belong in an arboretum with cameras and applause.

That work belonged in the spaces between things. In the anteroom conversations and the encrypted subspace relays and the carefully maintained fictions that allowed the people doing the necessary work to continue doing it without becoming targets.

He was good at that work. He had always been good at it. It was, in fact, the only work he had ever truly been good at, the tailoring notwithstanding.
He watched a young officer near the front of the crowd wipe their eyes, quietly, with the back of one hand. The gesture had the specificity of something real — not performed, not self-conscious, just the body doing what it did when it was moved past the point where composure required maintenance. Garak observed it with the quality of attention he gave to all genuine things: complete, non-judgmental, and faintly sorrowful.

He did not begrudge them this. He genuinely did not. These people had survived something that should not have been survivable, and they had done it by holding to each other and to a conviction that the Federation's values were worth the cost of defending them, even against the Federation's own command structure. There was something in that which Garak, who had spent considerable portions of his adult life doing things that were necessary and not good, found genuinely moving.

It was simply that moving and safe were not the same thing.

The naive and innocent deserved their moments in the light. They deserved their memorial and their vindication and their President standing at a railing saying the true thing out loud. Garak had spent enough of his career providing cover for exactly this kind of moment — or something adjacent to it, if you squinted — to understand its value.

But the condemned and the damnable had their own function. And theirs was not performed in the light.

He straightened his collar with a small, precise adjustment — the habit of a man for whom clothing had always been both craft and armor — and returned his attention to the crowd.

Around him, the applause continued its warm and uncomplicated work before, gradually, the official ceremony concluded and everyone was left to their own devices, such as they were. He let it wash over him with the expression he kept for rooms where he wished to appear moved without appearing to be thinking, and thought about encrypted subspace relays, and the specific quality of patience that had kept him alive across circumstances that had killed considerably more straightforward people, and about the particular darkness of the work that remained.

The crew of the Theurgy had earned their moment. He would ensure, quietly and from an angle they would not necessarily be aware of until after the fact, that they survived long enough to have more of them.

It was, in the end, the least he could do for people who had never asked him to do anything at all. He had always found that the most interesting kind of debt.

 
Thanks to @RyeTanker for helping with the first section.

This is 2/2 of the memorial; writers have exactly two weeks to respond before the memorial is closed, thereby concluding the Epilogue and launching us into the Interregnum.

Re: Epilogue: They That Shed Their Blood [Day 03 | 1800 ]

Reply #11 –
[Ens Mia Dunne | Arboretum | Deck 22 | Vector 03 | USS Theurgy ]
Attn: @RyeTanker   @Brutus    @Nolan  @Ellen Fitz   @chXinya    @Dumedion  @Griff  @rae  @Stegro88  @tongieboi  @Pierce  @Tae  @Nesota Kynnovan  @Hans Applegate   @joshs1000  @Krajin  @Eden  @TWilkins  @ob2lander961   @P.C. Haring  

Mia stood just inside the doorway of the Arboretum. It wasn’t where she wanted to be at all. She still hurt, both physically and emotionally, from their missions and the loss of so many of the crew. She had barely gotten to know some of them before this insidious parasite had caused their deaths. She felt as if whatever she had done, it just wasn’t enough. She wasn’t able to do what was needed fast enough. Because of that, people were killed. She barely recalled their escape from the Hobus Facility, being one of the wounded that was just running for their lives. And to return to a battered ship and even more dead and wounded. Despite her own injuries, she had tried to assist medical. Doing menial tasks so the medical crew was free to treat the injured. Seeing Zark there had brought her up short. It felt like an impossibility that her friend could have been hurt bad, but there she was, unconscious and unaware of her surroundings. 

She forced her attention back to the Acting or new captain, feeling the loss of Ives among them. Ives, who had welcomed her back from her cryo-sleep not that long ago was now the one in stasis. She wasn’t sure if he was one of the lucky ones or not.
For the second time ever her eyes looked at the names carved on the memorial wall. She could feel the tears fill her eyes and the lump form in her throat when she saw Tyreke’s name. She felt an overwhelming need to get out of the crowded room. Even before the President began speaking, she turned and quickly made her way to the exit. She didn’t get too far down the corridor, weaving past others gathered there, before she couldn’t breathe  or see clearly through the tears. It was too much. She didn’t even realize when she all but ran into someone at the end of the corridor. She just sort of bounced off of them and fell against the wall, and slid to the floor in her grief.

[Kelistina (Kel) Kavot Droga | Deck 10 |Vector 02 | USS Theurgy ]

Kelistina did not know many of the crew. She was still more of an outsider that happened to be in the wrong place at the right time. She had found those two that had died, and had tried to protect the vessel that had taken her in.  There was still much to be done in the way of repairs. So here she was, welding bulkheads and repairing wiring while those who had served on the Theurgy for a long time were at what they called a memorial. She would remember the ones lost in her own way. When the Arboretum was empty and she could honor them in the way of her people.

It was ironic that they had taken her in, just before the maddness came on board. And now she was part of the crew, even if it was accidental. While she felt saddened by the number of deaths, but many had also survived, unlike her own home world. Kel was also relieved to have some sort of a home and others around her once again. Even if she would never have a mate, or a child. Sometimes, even in the throes of pain, if one looked they could find a semblance of peace within. With that thought in mind she went back to repairing the home she had found on the Theurgy.

Ensign Mia Dunne   [Show/Hide]

  Kelistina (Kel) Kavot Droga   [Show/Hide]

Re: Epilogue: They That Shed Their Blood [Day 03 | 1800 ]

Reply #12 –
[Ens. Talia “Shadow” Al-Ibrahim | Arboretum | Deck 22 | Vector 3| USS Theurgy] Attn: All
[Show/Hide]
The names were read, now etched in stone.

The faces of the lost flickered in cones of holoprojected photons, grainy but visible to all.

Across the cavernous chamber, all fell silent as a lone trumpet drew its first mournful notes – followed almost imperceptibly by a hundred subtle shifts of fabric and the faintest chorus of heels clicking together as those assembled moved to attention.

Talia swallowed her emotions and moved with them involuntarily, through several blinks; anger faded in the face of propriety. There would be a time and a place to ask questions, to dwell, to replay every memory and conversation, to rage and to grieve. At the end of the day, she knew herself well enough to know that all of it would simply become another stone for her to lift; just another burden added to the weight she carried around every second of every day.

She’d never admit it out loud, but Talia drew a twisted, misplaced sense of pride from it. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, the saying went, after all...but lately, Shadow couldn't help but notice the flaws in that philosophy: the chip on her shoulder, the way she judged herself, the way she judged others...

Who would want to know someone like that?

Some people were gifted with an aura of charm; they had a way of talking, a welcoming demeanor  that attracted everyone with ease. More than a few examples came to her mind.

Yet there she stood, just one person in a crowd; lost in a sea of strangers.

Utterly alone.

As the bugle played, dark chocolate eyes tracked several shifts in posture in the vicinity; hands were held, shoulders leaned together, and more than a few broke their bearing altogether – as the air wracked with muffled sobs.

The tears flowed, then; unbidden, uncontrolled, but silent. Talia let them roll down her flushed cheeks while she held firm, because the dead deserved respect, and reverence. This wasn’t about her and it didn’t matter how she felt – not there, not then.

When the final note faded with the memorials conclusion, Talia released the breath she’d been holding in a sigh that shook her entire body. There was no desire to linger, no reason to go up to the wall; she knew the names writ upon the stone.

The pilot wiped the tear streaks from her face deftly, then turned and strode to the nearest exit, weaving through the throng in purposeful strides. She had promises to keep, and people to check in with.

[LT Arven Leux | Med Lab 01 | Main Sickbay | USS Theurgy]
[Show/Hide]
The theoretical showed promise; that in and of itself told Arven he was on the right path to a working practical. Everything seemed to hinge on the patients ability to “trigger” the shift at the cellular level, a mystery locked away within the body, or the mind?

Or both, he wondered, analyzing the screeds of data that scrolled across the screens while his mind ran through the checklist of absolute non-viable options already discarded.

It was a short list, but longer than the potential remedies.
 
“I need more data,” Leux sighed, hands lifted from the ceaseless choreography of command inputs to palm his aching eyes. What he really needed was sleep; at least a few hours while the simulations ran, and the first batch of compounds replicated.
 
Testing would be required. Failure was likely. Pain was assured – a lot of it.

He’d explain it to her in a few hours.

Re: Epilogue: They That Shed Their Blood [Day 03 | 1800 ]

Reply #13 –
[ Lt. JG Dominic Winters | The Den | Deck 16 | U.S.S Theurgy Attn:  @Brutus  @Nolan  @ob2lander961  @chXinya @Dumedion  @Griff  @rae  @Stegro88  @Eirual @RyeTanker @tongieboi  @Pierce  @Tae  @Nesota Kynnovan  @Hans Applegate  @joshs1000  @P.C. Haring  @Krajin  @Eden  @TWilkins

After the speech had finished, Dom sat there and processed the whole speech from the President and her political diatribe. His ears flattened against his head and he threw the bottle of liquor at the wall with some serious force behind it. The glass shattered and spilled the rest of the contents onto said wall and down to the carpet. "Are you absolutely fucking kidding me?" Atlas snarled. Then the badge followed behind the bottle and smacked into the wall. "You pardon us on the Net, then out of a fit of sheer stupidity, you decide to announce to the entire Federation and beyond the infection status! You're a dumb, fucking moron!" He shouted at the broadcast.

He vented his frustration at the politician, and unfortunately, if anyone else was in the room they would see his fiery temper flare up. "Now, our enemies will see the Federation weak. The Infected have nothing to lose with their entire existence exposed. Holy shit, the entire Federation is now at risk from within and without. Did you suddenly forget how to think and breathe at the same time?"

He got up and stalked his way over to the shattered glass, grumbling all the way, and knelt down to pick up all the bits as best he could. Stupid breakable bottles. He glanced at the combadge that had been used as a projectile and on one hand, considered the hilarity of if that rant had been broadcast to the President. On the other hand, that would be real awkward. His tail lashed about while his ears remained pinned to his head as Atlas picked up the last of the glass and took it to the replicator for recycling. Impulse control now on the lower end of the scale since he had imbibed a fair bit of alcohol. He came to the very bad conclusion to go up there and give that woman a right piece of his mind. Though, likely any one of the pilots or a security staff member would stop him before he got to far and cause an incident on the Theurgy.

Re: Epilogue: They That Shed Their Blood [Day 03 | 1800 ]

Reply #14 –
[Lieutenant Dr. Nathan Frost, Ph.D. | Deck 22 | Arboretum | USS Theurgy]
[Attn: @Eirual]

A soft, dour grumble escaped Frost’s lips as he made his way through the corridor; his blue eyes glued on an interactive map of the ship as he came around a corner. While he was occasionally accused of having a terrible sense of direction, which was true but nevertheless always vehemently denied, Frost couldn’t get around the fact that he was completely and utterly lost. Every deck aboard the battle-damaged dreadnought was an utter maze and, in fairness, the Canadian Immunologist wouldn’t even be able to find his own quarters on Deck 15 if he wanted to; let alone the Arboretum.

On the bright side, he did stumble onto the quaintest little bar called the Below Decks Lounge – twice- somewhere on Deck 28. It hadn’t helped him to find the Arboretum though and, too proud to ask for directions, Frost had stubbornly pressed on with the help of his interactive map. A part of him contemplated just returning to the Below Decks Lounge though, provided he could still find it; the ceremony was likely over anyway and, as a new arrival to the ship, it was likely that no one expected nor missed his presence there anyway. Yet, as the Acting Chief Science Officer, he also knew that he couldn’t expect the Science Department to be present while he remained a no-show and thus he continued to make his way through the corridors of what he believed to be Deck 27.

As he rounded another corner, his blue eyes still glued to the interactive map on his PADD, Frost suddenly crashed right into someone. It sent him stumbling back; the PADD flying through the air and clattering harmlessly onto the deck while Frost fell backwards against the wall and just barely kept standing. He was about to speak up and voice his utter exasperation of being ran into like that, but he quickly closed his mouth again when he realized that it was Mia who’d ran into him. With a shock, he realized that the blonde-haired woman had fallen against the wall and was now sitting on the floor; clearly in grief.

”Mia?” As Frost spoke up, there was a hint of concern in his Canadian-accented voice. A part of him was curious what she was doing on Deck 27, but given the tears in the woman’s green eyes it was obviously not appropriate. No; he recognised the woman’s grief and instead carefully approached Mia before kneeling down next to her. ”Hey, Mia…” Frost briefly paused, trying to choose his words. ”It’s okay…” He paused for a couple of seconds while staying kneeled down on the deck next to the woman. ”Come on, let’s get you off the floor. We’ll get you a warm drink, alright?”

Re: Epilogue: They That Shed Their Blood [Day 03 | 1800 ]

Reply #15 –
[ PO2 Knox | Arboretum Terrace - Memorial Wall | Deck 21 | Vector 3| USS Theurgy ]

Knox, having already checked in with Cross earlier, decided to continue the day in his official female form. PO2 Knox was the first human that he impersonated. And he was still impersonating her. So did that make him a she today? Knox pushed the ridiculous question aside as he rounded the corner of the hallway and entered the area where the memorial service was about to start. There was already a crowd there to celebrate how few crew members there are left now. Noting everyone’s somber expression, Knox mimicked their melancholy looks, feeling a bit emo while doing it, and made his way to a place to participate in the ceremony. Or maybe not participate. Observe. That is the word. Observe—actively in a group together.

The person doing the talking said really nice things about the dead crew members. That made Knox feel like he should respond, or someone should. Cheer or clap or something since they sounded so awesome. But there was just silence from the crowd. No ‘So say we all’ or anything, so Knox stayed quiet too.

Then came the name reading. It was and wasn’t that long. Knox had never been to a funeral like this before. The spawning season as a Nebullian Crab saw hundreds of thousands of their kind die each year shortly after mating. Tridopulons lived for nearly a thousand years and had very few numbers to start with so death for one of them was rare, but apparently their funeral could go on for a week or more. Warriors of Kevnath, a tentacled wasp-like people, held a massive gathering where they read the names of their fallen after a battle with a rival clan before having a massive orgy to breed new warriors to replace the ones who had fallen in battle. Knox looked around and deduced that there was no mass orgy likely in the near future, seeing as how everyone was acting. Although there were tears. Many members of the crew were crying because of the deaths of their crewmates. Crew…mates…

Then, as Knox was deeply thinking about the word Crewmate, the ceremony concluded. People began to mill around and talk. Some hugged. Others cried. Some seemed to head away quickly wanting privacy. Knox was interested in making a friend or two if he could. This was his first social outing after all.

He walked up to a cute young ensign and decided to open with a question that seemed on topic and relevant to the situation. “Hi, did you lose anyone close to you?” Knox asked.

The ensign started to cry loudly with big, tearful sobs, as Knox stood there wondering what to do next. But before Knox could make up his mind for his next course of action, the cute ensign ran away down the hall, still crying loudly.

“I didn’t get your name!” Knox called out.
 

Re: Epilogue: They That Shed Their Blood [Day 03 | 1800 ]

Reply #16 –
[Lieutenant (j.g) Alistair Leavitt | Arboretum | Deck 22 | Vector 03 | USS Theurgy]
[Show/Hide]

Alistair, true to form, was late. Very late, in fact. After returning from the Hobus mission, he had been everywhere and nowhere, handling countless tasks ranging from the tedious to the apocalyptic, and sheer exhaustion was growing more and more insistent. He completely lost track of the time as a result, and so only just entered the arboretum halfway through the ceremony. He stood alongside the rest of the crowd, watching and listening, though he barely registered most of it. Alistair was still numb after Hobus.

Enyd being alive helped warm him, but their all too brief exchange wasn't enough. Even standing with his crewmates, even hearing the president welcome them back, Alistair couldn't help but feel a weight on his shoulders, grim and penetrating. Isolating. The thought of returning to his quarters alone was deeply unsettling.

One thing, however, caught Alistair's eye as Commander Stark said her piece. Behind her, on the wall, was not just a list of names, but a list of starships, their artistically outlined shapes visible next to them.

USS Harbinger NCC-67890
USS Endeavour NCC-71805
USS Resolve NCC-91985
USS Bellerophon NCC-74705
USS Eclipse NCC-73888

The last one hit like a gut punch. Alistair hadn't asked anyone to put the name up there. He hadn't even talked about it since returning to 2381, save for a murmured confession to Enyd in the dark, protected by their blanket fortress. Still, somebody had read the report. Put it up there.

The weight grew. Alistair left as soon as he politely could, talking to no-one.

Re: Epilogue: They That Shed Their Blood [Day 03 | 1800 ]

Reply #17 –
[ President Nanietta Bacco | Arboretum Terrace | Deck 21 | Vector 3 | USS Theurgy ] ATTN: @Brutus  @Nolan  @ob2lander961  @chXinya  @Dumedion  @Griff  @rae  @Stegro88  @Eirual  @RyeTanker  @tongieboi  @Pierce  @Tae  @Nesota Kynnovan  @Hans Applegate  @joshs1000  @P.C. Haring  @Krajin  @Eden  @TWilkins

The ceremony had a before and an after, and the after was where the real work happened. Bacco's formal role was done. The words were on record, broadcast across subspace to every listening ear in the quadrant. She knew several of those ears were currently convening emergency sessions. She had made her decision and was prepared to defend it. She stayed anyway.

An aide materialized at her elbow — silent, waiting until she turned. She turned. He offered a padd. She read the first two lines — Council reaction, Andorian bloc, procedural challenge already filed — and handed it back without finishing.

"After," she said.

He retreated. Garak, who had been standing four feet away and pretending not to hear any of it, said, "You're staying."

"Apparently."

"They'll notice."

Bacco glanced across the terrace. A young officer — lieutenant's pips, hadn't slept in a day and a half from the look of him — moved through the thinning crowd with his eyes fixed somewhere past all of it. He was heading toward the stairs down to the garden level. Not the exit. She didn't stop him.

"Stark did well," Garak said.

"She did." Bacco watched Commander Stark across the terrace, still upright, still present, fielding quiet words from officers who approached and retreated. Her face was composed. It was costing her. "She'll need real support. Not dispatches."

Garak said nothing. Which meant he agreed, or had already thought of it first. From somewhere below, in the garden, a sound reached them — muffled, quickly controlled. Someone who had held it together for as long as the setting demanded and then stopped. Bacco did not look over the railing.

An aide touched her arm. "Admiral Al-Tulan's flag bridge has acknowledged our position update. No change to patrol assignments."

"Good."

She moved along the railing, unhurried, letting the remaining crew navigate around her or approach as they chose. A petty officer — older, steady-eyed — caught her eye briefly and dipped his chin. She returned it. Nothing else was needed. At the far end of the terrace, partially visible through a gap in the dispersing crowd, a man stood just beyond the arboretum's threshold. Romulan. Arms clasped behind his back, gaze angled toward the floor. A pilot passed within arm's reach heading for the exit — dark eyes still carrying the gloss of recently wiped tears, spine deliberately straight. Bacco didn't reach out. She was a stranger here in every sense that mattered, and that woman's grief wasn't hers to manage.

"The speech will trend," Garak said, appearing at her left shoulder. "The line about carrying the Federation's voice through fire." He watched the crowd a moment. "Which is precisely why what comes next is going to be unpleasant."

She looked at him.

"You invoked executive authority that no sitting President has used in this capacity." His voice was mild, the way it always was when the content wasn't. "The Andorian bloc will call it unconstitutional before the day is out. The Vulcan delegation will demand a full procedural inquiry. Tellarite representatives will smell political blood and start drafting resolutions. And that's before the journalists finish writing their first round of commentary on what it means that a President pardoned a crew accused of treason without a Council vote." He clasped his hands behind his back. "You've given your opponents a very clean target, Nanietta."

"I know."

"You'll face sustained opposition. Not just in chambers — in the press, in the member worlds, from people who agree with everything you said and still object to how you said it."

"I know that too." Bacco turned back to the terrace, watching a young ensign stop in front of the memorial wall and stand there with her hands at her sides. "Elim. This isn't the first time I've walked into a room and done the thing that was going to cost me politically because it was the only thing that made sense."

"No," he agreed. "It isn't."

"Cardassia. The Dominion War accords. The Romulan Neutral Zone negotiations after Shinzon." She ticked them off without heat. "Every time, someone told me I'd overreached. Every time, the Council spent six months arguing about process while the situation finished resolving itself." She glanced at him sidelong. "We survived all of it."

"We did," Garak said. "Though I'd note that 'survived' covers a fairly wide range of outcomes."

"It does." She didn't smile, exactly, but something shifted at the corner of her mouth. "Start drafting the response framework. I want something in front of the Council within the week — full legal justification, precedent citations, and a proposed oversight structure that gives them enough procedural satisfaction to stop calling it unconstitutional in public."

"And if they don't stop?"

"Then they don't stop, and we make the argument somewhere louder." She looked back at the wall. The names from here were legible. So many of them. Each one had been someone's crewmate, someone's reason to keep doing the job. Her institution had spent over a year hunting this ship. The people who kept those names alive had died anyway, for something they never stopped believing in.

She thought of the Andorian bloc's challenge. She thought of Sankolov, somewhere out there, patient.

We have work to do.

But not yet. Stepping away too soon read as dismissal, and she had not come this far to dismiss anything. She folded her hands behind her back and stayed. Around her, the crew moved — people finding their way back to themselves after something large had passed through. The Theurgy hummed, scarred and stubborn, its air carrying the green of the arboretum below. Bacco watched, and waited.

FIN
 
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