Finding the Possibilities Part 1

Posted on Tue Mar 6, 2018 @ 7:51pm by Lieutenant JG Jacob Hartley & Ensign Willow Riordan

Mission: Falling Star
Location: Holodeck
Timeline: MD 30 || 1600 Hours

Anger raged through him, thinking of everything that had happened, how he had failed before. He had been on an assignment, and he had screwed up. He ran at his target, a Romulan, and leapt over the man. As he landed, he spun around quickly and kicked him in the back, sending him to the ground. He had chosen a selection of targets for his fight. He had, after all, a lot of aggression to work out, and this was the best way he knew how.

One attacker came towards him with a bladed weapon - a human this time - so he leant backwards, stepping back at the same time, avoiding the strike. As the attacker swung again, Jacob kicked off backwards in an arc, and as he reached the ground, he pushed off with his hands, moving in another arc. Landing on his feet, he ran at him, leapt up and kicked him in the face, sending the attacker, the last one, to the ground. He growled in anger, because he still felt the anger.

A motion behind him, more sensed than heard and the head of a Orion male flew past him with gore dripping from the severed stump. A female voice with no trace of an accent followed through a moment later. "If you aren't aware of your environment, it will kill you," it said.

Jacob saw the head fly past him, coming from a voice he didn't know. He couldn't disagree with the voice, which only made him angrier with himself for missing the target. He came face to face with the source of the voice, a young woman, someone he hadn't seen before. "I'm hardly in a position to disagree." Jacob said, seeing the weapon in her hand.

A shortish redhead in a skintight black bodysuit stood with her legs firmly planted on the ground and a weapon in her hand that looked like a short scythe of some sort. She had fine features and amber colored eyes, a slim build and a look on her face that was neither challenging nor welcoming. The decapitated body of a male Orion lay at her feet and she ignored it as she looked at him. "No, not really," she said. "But that's what team players are for."

"Not many people who can keep up though. Not saying that as a brag, but as a fact. Most people prefer phasers, they think hand to hand isn't always important to keep up on. But sometimes, you don't have the option." Jacob said, looking at her, ignoring the body. The tone of her voice, the calm stance and the plain look showed that this wasn't her first rodeo. "How about we try some team work on wave two?" He suggested.

"How about we exchange names first?" The redhead suggested as she gave her wrist a flick and the Orion's blood splattered off of it onto the corpse. "I'm Ensign Willow Riordan and you are?"

"Jacob Hartley, Lieutenant Junior Grade." He replied. "But I prefer going by Jacob, unless you happen to be a superior officer." He added.

"Lieutenant....Sir. I apologize if I interrupted and intruded on your training session, Sir," Willow said, coming about formally.

Jacob allowed himself a sigh, and dropped his head briefly. She was Intel. Any other department wouldn't be quite so formal. "You're in Intel?" He asked, wanting to confirm his suspicion.

"Yes, Sir," she responded. "Infiltration Specialist, Lieutenant Hartley."

He sighed. "Not sure if you've met Alex yet, Lieutenant Rho, but in Intel, we're a little less formal. First name basis, unless it's a formal event or meeting. Hell, we don't often wear uniform when on duty. Alex run's the department a little differently, and it's more relaxing." He said. "Unless the Guardian's mess up. Let's not go down that road. So please, call me Jacob. And you don't need to stand at attention, we're not even on duty at the moment. The only thing you came in on was me being angry at myself."

"Then call me Willow," the redhead replied. "And no, I've not met him. I just came from Deep Space Ten and wanted a workout before I officially start duty. The holodeck wasn't locked, so I came in and saw you were about to be ambushed. Why are you angry?"

"Screwed up on my last away team. No one got hurt, but I broke the cardinal rule of Intel, and acted before thinking properly. Got chewed out, rightly so, by the XO. Making things worse, she ordered me to retake my phaser quals, and some moron changed the target. Third target I hit, right between the eyes, was a holo representation of the XO...which she walked in on." Jacob replied. "Not exactly my finest day."

"Ouch, and you're still a Lieutenant...or did you get busted down?" Willow asked him. "If I'm prying, let me know and I'll stop."

Jacob chuckled. "It's fine. No, didn't get busted down, but I know she won't let me forget it anytime soon, that's for damned sure." He said. "So it could have been worse. But I'm still angry, not so much for shooting the XO, so to speak, but for the mission. I spent years training, and being on assignments, and on something simple, I screw up. So I'm trying to work out my aggression, which isn't working that well. Even missed Reverend Green here." He said, referring to an old board game he often enjoyed playing, Cluedo.

"Mistakes happen," she said. "I'm certain you aren't the type to make the same mistake twice, either. What did you mean about Guardians?"

Jacob chuckled at the thought. "A short while ago, a life form took control of the ship. Little angry, and it set a few things off. Intel have Guardian AI's, as a measure of protection, given the information we have access to. They wanted to flirt with Alex, and tried to give me a proctological exam." He said. "Something I can laugh about now, but they had the business end of a blaster at my nose. Never go anywhere without a holo disruptor now, just in case."

"A...proctological exam...from a Guardian AI. It seems I have a lot to learn," Willow commented. "So about your mistake. Do you always take it out on holograms, or do you learn from it and turn your anger into something productive?"

"Usually, the latter, in truth." Jacob replied. He looked around the holo arena and the bodies. "Sometimes, I find it helpful to take out my anger on a target, and a holodeck can give a challenge. But it's more than taking my anger out on them. It's...a reminder. No matter how much we want to be, we can never fully be in control of the situation. Even when I create a program, I make a mistake, which in the real world would cost me my life. So I learn how not to make those mistakes again, because that's the best way to learn."

The petite redhead looked at the fallen bodies and then back to him and a look of disdain flickered across her features. "So you made a mistake on a mission by acting without thinking and instead of running that scenario over again to see the possible outcomes, you chose to get in this simulation and kill holographic constructs that had no idea why you want them dead. Makes sense."

"I don't like running over the same mistake I made, because it's a case of What If? What if I did a different action? Then I'd let myself get eaten up. I know I made the mistake. I know I need to do better. So replaying the mission...I don't know what would happen if I did things differently. Maybe I could find out, but at the same time, it wouldn't change anything. So I try different scenarios, different lessons. Because whilst the scenarios are different, the lessons remain the same." Jacob explained. "Not sure if that makes much sense, to be fair."

"If you don't learn from the past, you're doomed to repeat it, Jacob," Willow said pragmatically. "I guess you aren't the type who likes to repeat things according to what you just said. Remind me to not ask for much advice." Her tone was light, but the look in her eyes was one hundred percent challenging. It was clear that while she may respect a rank, the person wielding it was only worth what they demonstrated.

"To be honest, I've never been one to give advice, unless it's about Parkour, or how to do a particular task in Intel." Jacob said. "If I'm honest with you Willow, the last time I tried to repeat something, I almost let myself get eaten up by it. I know I have to face up to the past eventually, but for now, I focus on the now." He said.

He allowed himself a sigh. "Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present." He said. "Relive, don't relive. I used to be too concerned with what was and what will be. When I was a child, I found myself wanting to change the past. My parents were killed when I was barely a week old. An accident on their cargo ship. Growing up, I wanted to know where I came from. I wanted to know who I was. So my adoptive father, he taught me not to relive the past, but simply learn from it. It might be a mistake, but I try to live in the now. I screwed up. I learn from it, and I do things differently. Is it the best way? Probably not. But it's the only way I know how." He explained.

Willow listened carefully to what he was saying and what he wasn't saying before she cocked her head to the side. "You do realize that you keep contradicting yourself, don't you? How can you learn from the past if you don't use the opportunity now to learn from it?" she asked him. "You say one thing, but you do another."

"I learn by accepting the mistake I made. I don't relive it. Like I said, not the best way, but it's the only way I know how." He said. But even as he spoke, he knew she was right in what she was saying. It was interesting, though. He had spent years living the way he had. But never once had he relived a mistake. Certainly, he had the opportunity to do so. That was what the holodeck was for. And it wouldn't take too long to run through the program again, to see what the outcome might be. Of course, it was all theoretical, but it might provide answers.

Or it might leave him with more questions. Was that what he was afraid of? Was he afraid of getting the answers to those questions? It wasn't an avenue he had considered before, of course. William had told him that he needed to think more on the mistakes of his past, but his lessons had always been vague in that sense, because he wanted his students to learn for themselves. He couldn't always nurse them, and now he was gone, he couldn't advise Jacob. So who was this young woman who seemed to be telling him what he knew to be true, and yet had not followed through.

"I always thought life was a contradiction. We're born to eventually die, yet we do everything to avoid it. We have power to help those in need, yet the Prime Directive often forbids us from doing so. The first rule for a Doctor is to do no harm, yet by not taking an action, they could end up doing harm, unintentionally. So tell me something Willow, how do you face up to things that you can never change? What different does reliving it do? Learning is one thing, but redoing it? It's the What If conundrum, and it's one I'm still learning. Not ashamed to admit it, to be honest. Let's face it, most of what we learn happens when we're out here. It's difficult, to be sure. So I just do the best I can with what I have and know. If I'm wrong, then maybe I do need to learn. And it's a long journey. But maybe I will learn somehow."

"How do I face up to things I can't change? I accept it and move on," she said with a shrug. "But I make damned sure that I don't repeat it. Doing that in my line of work means I end up dead and I happen to like being alive. I learn from it, I accept it, and I do everything in my power to keep going forward. But if you can relive and redo it, you can learn how to not screw up the next time. If it's something beyond your control..." Another shrug. "Then you learn how to accept it."

Jacob nodded. "I accept the mistakes I make. That much I agree with. But I never saw how reliving an event can help. I know some counselor's say it can help. But I guess in some instances, I found the past too painful to face again. Not every instance, and not the last mission. But some...well, I'm a work in progress, as my mentor used to say." He said. He looked out at the arena, and at the sky. It was a red sky, with flames in the background. It was an old training program, but the scene was always...interesting, to Jacob. But he always changed the scenes he took part in. "Everyone faces the past differently. Not always the right way, but no one can be right all the time." He said. A part of him accepted that he had been wrong in not reliving some of his mistakes. But the question he had to answer was whether or not he was ready to change that, and if he was, how would he start? He hadn't found himself so confused for...a long time. And maybe this was the lesson he had needed to learn.

"Then I guess that doesn't make you too much of an Intelligence agent, does it?" Willow asked him bluntly. "We have to study the past to predict future outcomes. We have to find the patterns to break and learn how to get around, over or through them. We can't let our emotions get in the way of a mission. We just have to do it. If we screw up, who knows how many people die, if it ends up starting a war, or anything else that isn't desirable."

"Hence the mistake." Jacob accepted the point of view. He sighed as he looked at the sky, at the clouds and the colors as they blended into the background. "Have you ever lost anyone close to you?" He asked, curious. "I only ask because you speak like someone who has faced something similar. But emotions...you're right, they can get in the way of a mission. It's why I thought my way would work, because I wouldn't need to face the emotions. Sometimes, I think the Vulcan's have it right."

"Close? No," she responded. "However, I have known people who have died because of stupid mistakes and I don't want to see that happen to anyone else. Especially not if I have to work with them. One person makes a mistake on a team, the entire team can die and I wouldn't want that on my shoulders. Especially if I was the person who made the mistake."

Jacob nodded. "Understandable. I always lived by a code. Mine was about family and precision. Most people don't have a code. But code can be faulty. Swap out a part, makes the whole work a lot smoother. Get the part working, it means no change needed. Regret is a damned powerful thing to live with." He said. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I do need to face the past. Hardest thing about facing it is dealing with knowing you could be wrong. Maybe things would be different in some instances." He said. "I feel like I should apologise, haven't exactly started off on the right foot here."

"Never apologize if you learned something and if you make a mistake after studying a past mistake, it only means that you can go back to study it again so you won't make the same mistake again," Willow told him. "The only regret is allowing a mistake to continue."

"Not going to argue with that." He agreed, with a nod. "I guess...well, I have a new program to set up." He told her. "Thank you. Not really your job, but I appreciate the advice. Guess sometimes hearing it from a different party can help."

"There's no need to thank me," she said with a smile. "My thanks is you choosing to learn something. Care to have dinner?"

Jacob smiled. "Sure. Could always do with something to eat. You have something in mind?" He asked.

"I heard there's a really nice restaurant on board," Willow said. "The Event Horizon or something like that. I've never been on a ship this size before and haven't checked out much more than my quarters and the holodeck."

"Alright, how about we meet there in about thirty minutes? I'm not exactly suited for dinner at a restaurant." He said, with a smile.

"Thirty minutes it is," she agreed readily. "See you then?"

"Definitely." He agreed, turning to leave. Then something hit him. "Oh, it's The Black Hole, not The Event Horizon.." He added. "Computer, end program." He added.