Last Resorts

Posted on Sun Aug 23rd, 2026 @ 5:41pm by Subcommander Kaiae t'Lien & Centurion Valdus tr'Raedhoel

1,999 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Intermission: Safe Haven
Location: Haven Colony

Kaiae had nearly veered off at least three times on her way to her current destination. It felt improper, still. But probably less improper than any of the alternatives available, at least the useful ones.

Because talking into thin air at the dead had done her no good so far: If Areinnye could have actually answered her, she would not have had this problem in the first place. As to the living, her parents and grandmother were out, as well; none were qualified to provide such guidance. Anyone under her command was so out of the realm of acceptability it didn't even bear a moment's thought; Freya was as well, for both command chain and cultural fit. It had taken her these last several months of staring down increasing - yet still just as disgusting - cups of the human's strange bean brew to finally come to this conclusion earlier in the evening, that if she did nothing, she was apt to break, in a way she could afford no more now, still, than she could have six months prior. And there was, perhaps, at least one person on the colony she could - barely - defend to herself as - again, barely - within the bounds of acceptability to approach on the issue.

She almost stopped herself a fourth time, raising a hand to rap on the door. If she hadn't been certain from seeing him earlier that Hatham was elsewhere at the moment in fact, she might have walked away indeed, but finally forced her hand to follow through, and stepped slightly back from and to the side of the door, waiting.

Inside, Valdus had just washed off after his last sparring/training session with one of the older teens, and at hearing the door and knowing the rest of the household was out, he quickly slipped on pants and a tunic. As safe as the colony was, relative to Romulus anyway, he still checked to see who was out there before disarming safeguards and unlocking the door. However, he met the visitor with a smile. "Subcommander, welcome." And perceiving from the look of her that this was business, he added. "How may I serve?"

Kaiae, dipping her head to Valdus, waited for him to step back, return the gesture, and make space for her to enter before finally speaking as the door shut behind her, shielding anything they might say from those who might potentially pass by.

"I am in need of...advice." Since he was sharing a household with his son, Kaiae suspected he had already heard at least some of the backstory of things that had come to pass in the time preceding the evacuation and rescue; but was uncertain exactly how much of it, as concerned her history in it. "Two years ago, I was a lieutenant and senior communications officer on a warbird under Commander Areinnye t’Vraen. When I originally met your son, I was brought together with Raven, his commander at the time, while following my own in what at the time was meant to be a grander effort to save more of our people - " here Kaiae's tone took on a disdainful, spitting anger for a moment " - regardless of the wishes of our government."

She settled back into a less venomous cadence. "Things went ill quickly, however; and she returned to our space for what was meant to be a short time. It was months, however, before she returned, and when she did, she departed soon after again to whatever net of political intrigue she had become ensnared in, and was never heard from again." Kaiae paused, because what she was about to say was vanishingly rare in happening, and had likely as such cost Areinnye a literal lifetime's worth of every ounce of political capital she'd had, to secure it. "Before she did so, she presented me rather abruptly with a promotion she had somehow secured for me...from lieutenant directly to subcommander."

A younger man might have given the Romulan equivalent of a low whistle, but Valdus simply pursed his lips. 'Large weight, young shoulders' was an old tale to him by now. "You shot up ranks in the midst of battle - perhaps not obvious active combat, but battle nonetheless. You're not the first, and Elements willing, you won't be the last." It might be gruff reassurance, but he was a Weapons Master. People didn't come to him for a shoulder to cry on. Still, he could read exhaustion, some level of desperation in even admitting to needing advice. "I know Hatham thought highly of Areinnye, and given we're standing here instead of burned up with Romulus, I'd say she chose well. Also, the fact you know you need advice and will ask rather than try to stumble your way through is further proof of that."

Given she was still feeling her way through the awkward mutual balance of power in play here between them, Kaiae decided against directly acknowledging any of the statements just made, and instead let them be indirectly acknowledged mostly by posing what she considered probably the most pressing of the issues she had come to discuss. "The most immediate quandary is that there do not appear to be enough hours in the day to complete things, or even to simply remain appropriately apprised of situations and give orders to have them addressed or completed by others." Another pause, because the next part was a both uncomfortable and dangerous admission. "I made it work until now. I do not think it will work for much longer."

Valdus head tipped fractionally to the side. "I see. Then the most important thing you missed with that jump up promotion was How To Delegate. The thing you need to do is not give orders to have things addressed by others, but to select others who can handle some subset of situations and order them to do so." He thought a moment on the somewhat limited pool of talent on the colony. "It may not be easy to find those people, but at least lower priority issues should fall to lieutenants or aides, and the most important criteria for choosing them is that it should be people who know when to handle the issue themselves and when it's something that you need to weigh in on."

Kaiae was not sure entirely who among those she had arrived with might fit that sort of specification beyond the few who already to a degree held it; but seemed sound advice regardless and resolved to set aside some time to consider further who else might be appropriate as well. "The other issue is perhaps slightly less urgent, but somewhat thornier. Issues of integrating and coordinating with first Raven's crew, then Freya's, notwithstanding, I could at first at least to some degree draw on the same structure and expectations as any Galae commander - or at least any on a long mission under cloak and comms silence - to maintain discipline. It seems rather more difficult to achieve and maintain, without that." She had wondered sometimes of late at night when unable to sleep if these sorts of issues had plagued their distant ancestors; having left behind everything they knew and the scaffolding it gave to their lives and orders and actions, trying to build something new without that benefit. "Until new such systems are developed and accepted as replacements, the gap in between what was and what is yet to be seems like a potentially perilous place in that regard."

"Ai, it is." Again, there was no reason to sugar coat. "But many of us were Galae, and recall discipline. And the was a discipline to society, if less well marked out. The danger is greatest in two time frames, I'd say. While we re-establish those norms among ourselves, though I think this will happen and with only some knocking of heads," he said, stretching shoulders and well muscled arms. "I think the greater problem will be instilling it in the children, especially those rapidly reaching early teen years now. It's the other reason we're going to start apprenticeships wherever we can; to give them a purpose and place."

“True. My mother was lamenting the other day that the older teens currently will have nowhere to go in a year or two, to learn such as they would have.” By 14, Kaiae and her childhood friends and neighbors had been focused on the last of their schooling and private preparations for the term of service nearly everyone was required to complete; by 16 she herself had been even more so on her grandmother’s advice on how to best further her own ambitions to make a career of it; others had been taking courses in areas they hoped to apprentice in for a separate civilian career once their term was complete. In both cases it had provided, she could see looking back, an essential structure, purpose, and goal, and furthered both social cohesion and personal control at a time when emotions and behavior would otherwise have been even further intense and erratic in adolescence. “Beyond requiring participation in the colonial militia and pairings as apprentices to an area of aptitude and interest, I am uncertain how to go about replicating a decent set of social boundaries to train their discipline and control as life on the core worlds or even the outlying colonies would have.”

Valdus released a sigh. "In that, we all might as well as be newly enlisted cadets. I think for the farm families it will be easiest. While they have to start farms from scratch, farming will be important and intensely occupying, requiring cooperation across the community to secure a harvest, so the structures and boundaries of a farm community will fall most easily into place ...I confess, however, to having only passing familiarity with those, and I suspect those for food crops are probably different than those for the estate viniculture that my wife oversaw." His mouth tilted a bit downward. A Weapons Master ceding to a farmer would have been unthinkable at one point in his life, but he'd lived through much and adapted since losing his place at the estate. Finding himself in a place of honor again had restoked his pride, but pride had no place in battle, and this was a battle for survival for all of them. "I'd advise finding an old grandmother from one of farming families and asking for her insight on that."

Kaiae dipped her head in acknowledgement of this point; if you wanted advice on building and managing social cohesion and structure, there was probably no one better to ask than an old matriarch. It would require someone rather older - and ideally, having led a larger house or clan than - than her own grandmother, however, who hadn't quite even yet been old enough to have retired from her university professor job at the time of the nova; a second mental note was made to consider the oldest women on the colony and which of them might fit the bill as regards to past breadth of such. "Thank you. I may have further inquiries in the future." There was much more she could said, of the stress weighing on her shoulders these last few years and its impacts that left her feeling one step from breaking, but if she wanted to do that, screaming into the air at Areinnye was actually a better solution for that piece; the dead were, after all, the only reliable keepers of secrets. At the moment what she wanted was solutions, practical solutions.

Valdus inclined his head a precise degree lower, as befitted Kaiae's rank, if not her life experience. But given the wisdom she'd showed in setting pride and place aside to advice, there was respect beyond simply to rank in his reply. "Return any time. I am honored to be of service."

RSS Feed