New Training Mission: Surprises

[tpren]

Stephens walked with T'Pren to the conference room. They walked mostly in silence, as Stephens did not feel quite as exuberant as he normally did. The carnage in sickbay and the violence in the Jefferies tube had sobered him somewhat to the sometime reality aboard a starship, and he was absorbed in his own reflections on this as they walked along.

Entering the conference room together, they both noticed that Cadets Crusser and Tovan were standing near the window, having a hushed conversation. T'Pren seated herself primly at the conference room table, while Stephens approached the two cadets.

"So, gentlemen," Stephens said. "Quite an interesting ordeal. But except for finding Dr Brelev with a dart in her neck, I'm afraid I've been somewhat out of the loop. Would you mind filling me in a bit?"

T'Pren sat and listened to all of the information the two other Cadets gave about the situation. As the senior staff filed in, and the briefing began, she began to feel a strange unease steal over her. Not one for "feelings", she began to wonder, in the back of her mind, what was going on.
Suddenly, the Hanson was rocked by an explosion. There was someone firing on the ship.
T'Pren had a pretty good idea that it was the Breen ship that had snatched away "ambassador Davis" from the Hanson. She had about a millisecond to think all of this before her head collided with the tabletop, and the world went black.

OOC: I hope that catches me up. Let me read the remainder of the posts (this one is in response to the posts on pg. 7) and see if I can reinsert T'Pren into things. Sorry I've been away, see LOA postings for details.

[tpren]

T'Pren, can you realign our shields? Remember the multiphasic pulses we were seeing in the lab?" If she forgot, it didn't matter- Stephen Connor jumped in immediately helping her.

T'Pren didn't need Connor's help in realigning the the shields, but after all they had been through together, she found his presence comforting somehow. She knew she could do it on her own, and even wanted to, just to show Commander Manto that she was able. Her Vulcan mind found memorizing the multiphasic pulses from the lab an easy task, and she could have done the realignment in a second. But a small deep part of her liked having Connor Stephens helping her, even depending on her for the information she had stored in her brain.
She wondered what to make of these "feelings". As a Vulcan-trained child and adolescent, she had never had these feelings before, and had been taught to supress them, in the Vulcan way. She had never even felt strongly for Skonn, her bondmate. It was puzzling, and she decided to meditate on it later, when there was time.

It was a hunch on Manto's part, but if they could modulate the frequency of the shields to align perpendicular to the pulses they were seeing in the science lab, then they might have a chance at stopping the attack.

T'Pren got the shields aligned, and then looked up from Science to see a bright flare on the main viewscreen. Apparently all the realignment was for nothing. Someone had "accidentally" destroyed the Breen ship.
T'Pren knew that Admiral Drew would not be impressed, and swung around to look at his expression.

“Sickbay to Admiral Drew,” Brelev said over the comm channel, “we have another problem – the Ambassador’s body has disappeared again.”

Drew shot a questioning look over at Commander Reynolds, whose hands were already flying over his console.

“He was beamed onto the other ship sir,” Reynolds replied, “in all the commotion we did not realise right away.”

“Something was never right with that man,” Drew said, looking to the viewscreen which now showed empty space where the Breen ship had been, “we will have to conduct an investigation.”

T'Pren suddenly realized that she should have mentioned her hypothesis of Breen transport earlier, in sickbay. She figured that someone else higher up would have told the Admiral about it, and that she wouldn't have to mention that she had known the whole time.
It would be illogical to give the Admiral information he did not already have, so T'Pren decided that it was enough that the Admiral knew, and left it at that.

Stephens turned to Manto and quietly inquired, "We're going home?" It seemed strange to suddenly be over, after all that had occurred. He'd never gotten the chance to know T'Pren as well as he'd wished; he felt like he'd never really done anything except fumble about on the great ship; he'd not gotten the chance to prove his real worth as a StarFleet officer, only as a puckish clown unable to keep himself together long enough to be of any real value. It was a sad time in many ways, but he was proud and glad that he had had a chance to serve with these fine people, as limited as it had been. He wondered what would come next, and he also knew that he would deeply miss the relationships that he had begun here.

Manto was smiling at him, as was T'Pren. It was the best of times, and the worst of times. But Stephens knew, deep in his heart, that the adventure was just beginning.

In spite of herself, T'Pren found herself smiling at Connor. She didn't know what would become of them after leaving the Hanson, but she knew that at the very least, she had made a friend, and friends were too rare these days to her. She vowed to herself to keep in touch with Connor Stephens after Graduation.
After all, he still owed her dinner, and T'Pren intended to collect.
From there on, it was anybody's guess.

"It has been an honour to serve this mission with you both" she said to Konal and Connor. "I would like it if we could stay in contact after Graduation". This was directed more in Connor's direction than their instructor's, but T'Pren meant it for both.
"I have benefitted from your instruction, Commander" she said to Konal, "and would find it agreeable if we could continue to correspond about Botany after I graduate, as I have always had some interest in plants and other Horticulture."

T'Pren knew that there was no way to know what the future held for her, but she knew now that she could handle much more than she had expected. That was most comforting of all. She would be content to wait and see how her future unfolded, knowing that she was a stronger person in the present. As long as that present contained logic, she could handle the IDIC of life.