The Price We Pay

Posted on 12 Feb 2019 @ 3:45am by Ensign Graham Beckett, Ph.D. (Jan 2389 - TRNSFR After Gorn War)

Mission: Ka Hakaka Maikaʻi - The Good Fight
Location: Guest Quarters, Starbase 177, En Route to the Front
Timeline: 1/19/2389

ON:

"I don't like this."

They'd had to wait at Starbase 177 for two days, so it had been worth unpacking. Which meant Graham had to sit on the bed in their cramped guest quarters and watch his fiancée stuff everything she needed into one haversack.

"There's a lot of things you don't like, Gray." Maggie Sinclair didn't even look at him as she rolled, not folded, clothes to cram into the deepest corners of her luggage. "People who walk too slowly. Too much sauce on your food. Australian wine. When I put milk in with the tea bag before hot water -"

"That's not how you make tea!" Graham blurted before he could stop himself, then set his jaw. "Don't make out like you going to a war zone is one of my pet peeves."

"You're going to a war zone. You don't see me complaining." Where he was tall and lanky, occasionally described by her to be 'made entirely of elbows', she was fairly short, a little square of build, with dark hair now tied back into a practical ponytail. He got by on intellect and training, on looking every inch the distinguished scholar and backing it up, while she charmed or tricked or bull-rushed her way through any obstacle in her work; whatever it took to get the job done.

"I'm a Starfleet officer, and there's been an outbreak of war." Graham stood, trying to not sound too pompous and automatically failing because he by habit had to straighten his jacket as he got up. "I'm due a shipboard posting so it's only appropriate that I accept an offered assignment on the front."

"You mean, you're doing it because it's your job." Maggie watched him, hands on her hips. "I'm a journalist. I'm being embedded with Marines to bring news of the campaign back to the Federation, so people care about what's going on at Canterra. That's my job, Gray."

"It doesn't have to be." They'd been here before, he knew. It had come and gone as an argument since they'd both decided to leave Earth. But this was possibly the last time he'd get to have this argument - get to have any argument with her - and he was damned if he wouldn't do his utmost. "You've spent years as a correspondent at Command. You chose this."

"And you're telling me you couldn't have stayed at Security as a researcher or consultant? That you couldn't have taken some analyst post with Counter-Terrorism? That an officer of your qualifications couldn't have taken any number of jobs where he wouldn't get shot at, but instead you've taken a shipboard security posting in one of the most dangerous places in the galaxy?"

Graham hesitated. He knew there was a trap, he just couldn't see it. "I didn't join Starfleet to play it safe."

"And I," said Maggie with a hint of triumph, "didn't become a journalist to just vomit Starfleet's press releases back to the public." But then her gaze softened, and she padded over to him, slipping her arms around his neck. "You know you've got nothing to prove to anyone."

"You know that's not true," he said sadly, wryly. "If I want to get taken seriously in the long term, I need field experience. Or I'm just the guy who decided to take twice as long at the Academy and tried to inform policy after forever behind a desk."

"So getting shot at, or shooting Gorn, is going to make people listen to you better about improvements to galactic-wide security concerns." She rolled her eyes. "Your uniform's very silly sometimes." But she gave him a quick, sympathetic kiss before pulling away to return to her packing. It was still haphazardly enough done to give him a headache, and yet he knew she'd remember exactly where everything was even as she seemed to shove it in a bag with wild abandon.

"Is there anything you can tell me about the embedding?" he asked, shoving his hands in his pockets so he didn't fidget.

"You know I can't. But I know where you're going to be. I'll send word when I can." She threw him a small, reassuring smile as she zipped up one of the bag's countless compartments, finally chock-full. "And I'll do it as often as I can."

"I'm just going to be worrying every time I hear of any enemy contact -"

"I'm not going to be hefting a rifle right behind an assault team. They don't want me there like that."

"No, but we're still unsure of the armaments of the Gorn invasion and their propensity for aerial bombardment -"

"Gray!" Now frustration was back, and she straightened. "We've been over this. You're not changing my mind."

"And would you," he challenged, "if I took that analyst job with Commodore Roth? Stayed on Earth?"

"Why." Maggie grabbed a stack of PADDs and began sorting them, not even looking at him. "Are you about to?" But he hesitated, and before he could decide if he wanted to try to change the course of his life or at least bluff her into testing the waters, she lifted her head and looked him in the eye. "We weren't born to walk the easy road, darling."

I was, Graham thought guiltily. Which is why I've got a responsibility to not do exactly that. He sighed, gesturing helplessly with his hands. "I don't like worrying about you."

"Then welcome to my world, because I worry about you all the time." She selected two PADDs and slipped them into a fresh compartment. "Not about you getting shot. At least, not by Gorn. But maybe by some poor research assistant you've given twelve jobs to get completed in as many hours. Or if you'll remember to eat on your own. Or if you'll have your nose in a journal even while you're on a turbolift and suffer some improbable automatic door-based calamity." His fiancée gave him a fond look. "Really, I'm not convinced you can achieve basic survival on your own without me, so I should be the one who's allowed to fuss."

"I thought we agreed," he said wryly, "that fussing was my job."

"We did." She closed another bag compartment. "So I'm going to suggest something else. It's called: I ship out in thirteen hours and we're on a halfway-civilised starbase, how about we go out and enjoy ourselves in the time we've got left."

On any other occasion he would have protested. He still had reading to do ahead of his arrival on Hawaii, still had preparation for the specific posting and for assuming duties as a field security officer. But normally he would see her the next day if he buried himself in PADDs for a night; normally life would go on day after day on Earth and he didn't have to count the hours, minutes he had left until life ripped them apart. It was going to be something new, being away from her.

But then, all of this was going to be new, and that was what he'd wanted. It just meant there was a hefty price-tag of a lot of things he didn't want.


OFF:

Graham Beckett, ENS, SF
Assistant Chief of Security/Tactical