Something Routine, Something Shocking (backpost)
Posted on Fri May 15th, 2026 @ 2:52am by Lieutenant Rala & Lieutenant JG Jenna Jade
Edited on on Fri May 15th, 2026 @ 3:45am
Mission:
Lower Decks
Location: Main Shuttlebay
Timeline: Shortly before "Girls' Night"
Shuttle maintenance was honest work, slow work and most of all, lonely work most of the time. For Jenna, it was quite possibly one of the best places she could be. Now that she was no longer the Chief Engineer, especially with the 'how' it had happened, she was more than happy to be out of sight and out of mind. There was the occasional visitor, usually enlisted personnel, aside from Quinn Sullivan, of course, and her face flushed pink as she thought of him. He had become a companion these last few days, one that she could talk to... Or not. He was the quiet sort most of the time and she'd never told him why she'd been exiled down to the shuttlebay, but she didn't feel she had to.
When they'd talked, they had naturally talked a fair bit about work, especially some of the specifics of what needed to be done to the shuttles, but they had also talked a lot about family, when they talked at all and Jenna was fine with that. There was never any pressure about it and there had been at least a couple days when they'd barely said anything to each other already. Today, in fact, was one of those days, the quiet shuttlebay manager was actually working in one of the Type 11s while she was in the Argo trying to resolve the persistent issue that had been going on with the copilot's console and she finally thought she had it figured out, but she needed to get a better view and she pushed off of the seat to get a better look just a bit further in.
As she pushed off, the armrest her foot had been up against finally had enough and broke off, going flying out of the cockpit and into the cargo area with a loud clatter as her foot flailed and gained purchase again on another bit of the chair while she still hunted this original issue.
Rala had come down to the shuttlebay to check on the progress of undoing the modifications made to the Type-11 shuttle they’d used to rescue the Eureka Maru. As she strode across the open space, the cold metal decking making her bare feet tense up, she spotted a Type-11 shuttle farther down the bay—presumably the one in question, based on the open nacelle access panel she could see—but much closer to her sat another sleek craft of similar size but unique design aboard the Chimera: the Argo.
Its rear access ramp was open, and wheeled vehicle that actually gave the shuttle its name and purpose sat just outside. Rala knew of its existence, of course, and had a general understanding of its purpose and capability, but despite having been on board for roughly a year by this point, Rala had never actually seen the ‘buggy’ in person, and adjusted her path to get a closer look. It was surprisingly sleek for something made mostly of metal tubes and flat panels, and as she approached, she realized that it was slightly larger than she’d imagined.
She was reaching out with one hand to touch it when there came a clatter from inside the Argo shuttle’s interior. She figured the shuttlebay’s so-called ‘Ghost’ must have taken a break from one project to poke at another, and stepped around the buggy toward the shuttle to see if she could get an update on the Type-11 from him. However, it wasn’t the taciturn Irishman who she found inside.
Jenna's focus was completely on the damaged rod she could now see as she heard the footsteps approaching from the hatch and assumed that Quinn had heard the armrest destruction and come to investigate. That was actually fortuitous for her, "Hey Quinn?" She asked, "Ah see what it is, can you hand me those pliers in my kitbag and one of the spare number six isolinear rods? Ah know these things don't go bad, but this one is."
Sounds of someone rummaging through a toolkit came from the expected direction, and a few seconds later a hand reached down toward her, bearing the requested pliers and isolinear rod—but rather than the pale-skinned hand of a human, the one holding them was purple, with dark-clawed fingers.
Jenna tensed tightly as she glanced down for the tool, but then took them quietly without a sound and reached up with the pliers to work out the damaged rod and stretched as far as she could to slide the new one in, then relaxed her legs to the point where they were no longer straining before looking over the old rod visually and willing Rala to leave. There was an actual hairline crack that she could see in it, but it would take a detailed scan of it and the runabouts programming to make sure that it was resolved.
Finally she couldn't stall any longer and slid herself out from underneath the console and kept her eyes fixed on the ground as she got to her feet and considered what to do next. She could run from this, in fact it had a certain appeal to it, but she could only go so far away while on board the ship. So she finally straightened up, but still couldn't look up, "Can Ah help you with somethin', Rala?" She asked quietly.
After realizing who was actually in the Argo and handing her the requested tools, Rala had stepped back and to the side, leaning against the bulkhead. She pondered how to respond for a second before going with, “Wasn’t expecting to find you here, but thought I’d take the opportunity to check in on a friend,” she said softly. “How have you been?”
"Ah've been helpin' Petty Officer Sullivan with gettin' the shuttles back into gear after Tial and just workin' on 'em." Jenna still kept her eyes on the ground, "The Captain's had a lot of patience with me, though she took my position away, Ah'm no longer the Chief. She wouldn't let me resign, either."
Rala leaned forward slightly, tilting her head to one side. “I know J.J. has been calling the shots in Engineering, and based on the chat I had with Katie the day after...” she paused for a split second, and immediately wished she hadn’t, “...our last conversation...I figured it might be related, but I’ve only got part of the picture.” She paused again, weighing her words. “I don’t want to push, but...would you mind telling me what happened?”
"Rala, it ain't..." Jenna started, then sighed heavily as she let herself sit in the seat she'd broken the armrest off of, running a finger along the edge it had created, "Ah don't wanna talk about it."
Rala tilted her head the other way, debating whether to push after all, and how hard. After a few seconds, she stepped forward, kneeling down next to Jenna, and placed a hand gently on the Engineer’s knee. “Please,” she said gently, imagining that she could feel a brimming lake of emotion behind the other woman’s eyes, with a dam that was close to breaking. “I think it might be good for you.”
Jenna shook her head hard, never looking up and her shoulders hunched in on each other as she squeezed her eyes closed, "Ah said..." She started, then stopped herself again with another sigh, "Ah fucked up. Ever since... Ah don't know when Ah started, but there was just so much to do and not enough people or time in the days to get it all done. It was up to me to make sure the ship stayed runnin', so Ah started to take somethin' to keep me goin' after caffeine stopped workin'. One thing led to another and Ah had to keep takin' more and more stims until I turned into what you saw." Her voice trembled at the end, but she never could bring her eyes up, needing to hide the tears that had started again.
“I suspected it might be something along those lines,” Rala said softly. The trembling in Jenna’s voice caught her attention, and she leaned forward, spotting the tears the young woman was trying to hide. She gently spoke, and repeated, a word in Draakri that didn’t get translated but had a soothing tone to it, then gently pulled Jenna down into a hug. “Come here. Let it out,” she cooed.
Over the past few days, Jenna had been sure that she'd gotten everything out time and time again, but each time she'd been wrong. Regret poured out over and over, the thought of the people she'd wronged, the pressures she'd put on others and herself and once again it happened. "Ah'm so sorry about what Ah said t' you, Rala, Ah've been mortified over it and Ah couldn't just come and talk to you, 'cause it would have been too embarrassin'. Ah was just so horrible."
Jenna was sobbing as she spoke, getting louder as she went, until either she ran out of words or the tears simply overcame her. Rala held the weeping girl close, squeezing gently with three arms while the fourth lightly stroked her dark hair. Thinking some privacy might be called for, she scooted back again, drawing Jenna with her, until she could reach up with one hand and press the button to close the doors between the shuttle’s cockpit and cargo/buggy bay.
“There you go,” Rala said gently, returning her attention to the distraught young woman and beginning to rock slightly back and forth. “It’s okay,” she said, trying to keep her voice as soothing as possible, “I’m here for you, and I can stay as long as you need me to.” Truth be told, sitting on the floor at this angle was starting to make her tail ache, but at the moment that was a tertiary concern at best. She was just about to start uttering more hopefully-soothing words in Draakri when a thought occurred to her. With a deliberate breath and a small bit of inward focus, she started purring, hoping the rumbling sound and vibration would help soothe Jenna’s raw emotions.
Jenna didn't even hear or feel the purr, she was too intensely shuddering and sobbing and just like the last few times, it kept going for several minutes. She'd thought she'd been over the tears, over the feelings that came with having failed everyone and especially herself so immensely. If she could transfer ships out here, she'd have done so instantly to get the fresh start, but she'd also realized that this incident would have followed her career around and as she finally wore down once more, she made the admission that she'd made the decision on the previous night, "Ah'm... Ah'm gonna resign my commission when we get back to Federation space, Rala. Ah'm gonna go back home to the farm and start over."
“What?” Rala said, surprised, the purr faltering. She frowned, shifting slightly to look at Jenna a little more squarely. “Hey now, you don’t need to do that, and a lot of people would be sad if you did. I can name several right now, if you’d like.”
“Look at me, Rala,” Jenna sat up with a sniffle, wiping away her tears as best she could, “Ah’m a drug addict. Or at least Ah was, but do you know the statistics of relapsin’ into it if the circumstances come up? And who’s to say it’d be stims? Ah can already feel the eyes on me in the mess hall, the corridors, in Engineerin’ whenever Ah show up there. ‘There goes Jenna, the job was too tough on her so she turned to drugs.’ That, plus how fast I got the promotion to Jay Gee means that no other ship or station would take me, or if they did, suspicion would be followin’ me everywhere. Ah’d have to work at least twice as hard as anyone else just to prove myself to be at the level of their worst engineer and God forbid Ah make a single mistake.” She shook her head slowly, “Ah can’t do that, Ah can’t handle that.”
Rala turned to look at Jenna eye-to-eye, taking both of the young woman’s hands in her second pair while using one of the first to wipe away another tear before resting it on Jenna’s shoulder. “I see you, Jenna,” she said, squeezing her hands. “And you know what I see? I see an intelligent, capable young engineer with a bright future ahead of her who got thrown into deep, rough waters and still managed to stay afloat for over a year before going under.” She paused, trying to weigh her next words carefully and unsure how successful she was going to be. “You feel like you’ve...what’s the phrase, ‘burned all your bridges’? I promise, you haven’t. With how quietly all this has been handled, I’d say Calypso and probably Kally see the same in you that I do. Do you think they’d bother to keep this off the books if they didn’t genuinely want you to stay?” She squeezed Jenna’s hands again. “And they’re not the only ones. You have friends here, Jenna; the kind we Draakri consider the same as family. You did so much for us that you hurt yourself doing it, and anyone who doesn’t see the value in that can take it up with those of us who do. And if you ever feel overwhelmed again, with anything,” she concluded, pulling Jenna back into the hug as she passed along the advice she’d gotten from several others recently, “come to us, let us know; we’ll help. We’ve got you.”
“Ah know that the Captain is doin’ it to give me that second chance, but you have no idea how embarrassin’ this is to even need that.” Jenna glanced away again, “Ah shoulda just gone to Bellerophon and just been the overachievin’ junior engineer insteada’ lettin’ myself be bribed to switch to here. Would have been better for my career, but Minerva said this would be more excitin’, and Ah grew up with her, she was my best friend in the world and maybe Ah shoulda stayed on Tial with her.” She shook her head as she was hit with another wave of emotion at that loss as well. “Ah.. Ah just don’t know anymore. Ah don’t know who Ah am, Ah don’t recognize myself in the mirror.”
Rala was quiet for a moment, thinking. “If I might try to chart the course you’ve taken, emotionally speaking,” she said at last, “you’ve been through a storm, you almost sank, and now you’re way off course. You found a port, but it’s unfamiliar and discomforting, and your first instinct is to race back to where you started. But that’s not your only option. You could stay for a while, see how things are; maybe it’s not as bad you first thought. Or, take a bit to think: What was the last place you really called your ‘home port’? Because I’d bet it’s not that far back.”
"Honestly?" Jenna asked, looking at the console that was dark and lifeless, then blinking hard and shaking her head, "Ah think it was at the Academy. Everythin' was normal, was just flowin' smoothly when Ah arrived on Chimera and then... Ah think what went wrong was the Captain. Ah understand why she did what she did, but if Ah'd been able to just be a junior engineer for a while, Ah think Ah'd have been able to control myself a bit better."
“Well,” Rala said with a flick of an ear, tilting her head and giving Jenna’s hands another gentle squeeze, “I think the Captain is trying to give you a chance at exactly that. In fact, I’m pretty sure of it. So don’t make up your mind to leave just yet. It’s a long trip back anyway; use that time to stabilize, get your legs under you again, see how things feel in a few weeks. Maybe the winds will change by then.”
“Tell you what, Rala, Ah won’t just run away at the first chance Ah get.” Jenna said in a small voice, “It doesn’t mean Ah won’t leave if the time is right, but I won’t just bail out right now. Ah happen to think that the Captain should take away the extra half pip if she wants to do it right, but Ah can’t control what she does.”
“Good,” Rala said, smiling and giving Jenna’s hands another squeeze. “That’s all I ask. And if you’d like me to bring up the pip with the Captain, I can, but I will also be recommending against it. I believe that your actions and your performance of your duties, especially considering when and how they were thrust upon you, before this...recent stumble...do you more credit than can be stifled by this little misstep.” She pulled Jenna in for another gentle, steady hug. “You’re a good engineer, Jenna, and a good person; and,” she continued, her tone lighthearted, “you have most certainly learned what not to do the next time you get put in charge of something.”
“You mean keeping to myself, not wanting to put my problems onto anyone else and self-destructin’ while simultaneously hidin’ a copin’ method that is destroyin’ me medically as well as any social circle Ah have?” Jenna gave a wry smile and a nod, “Ah know what not to do next time, even if it means goin’ to my boss and askin’ to take some time off to destress. Thanks, Rala, for not hatin’ me for bein’ a complete bitch and forgivin’ me… And for bein’ a really good friend.”
“Of course,” Rala said. “How could I hate you when it wasn’t your true self I was seeing?” She gave Jenna one more squeeze, then pulled back to look at her. An amused expression passed over her face, her ears flicking, before she schooled it into a sympathetic one. “You, uh...hold on.” She got up and stepped over to the shuttle cockpit’s small replicator, returning with a few plain white pieces of cloth. “Here,” she said, holding one out and smiling as she sat back down. “You’re a mess, but being a mess is often part of healing, so I think it’s a good sign.”
“Ah really am, in more ways than one.” Jenna agreed with Rala, then blew her nose in one of the cloths she took, wiping her face with another, then smiled up at Rala and her face went to horror and she began to dab at Rala’s uniform with another clean cloth, “Oh my God, Ah am so sorry, Ah’ve made a mess of you!”
Rala looked down, seeing the damp patch on her uniform top that Jenna was rubbing at. “Oh,” she scoffed, reaching up to still Jenna’s hand. “It’s fine. In a few minutes it will barely be noticeable, and I can swing by my quarters to swap it out when I leave. Now,” she smiled, resting a hand on Jenna’s knee, “is there anything else I can help with, while I’m here? I was an engineer before I got here, you know.”
"Ah'm just finishin' up, actually, so long as that isolinear chip wasn't a dud." Jenna glanced at the chair, "And replacing that seat. But that won't take more than a few minutes."
“Still, I’m here, and my schedule has plenty of wiggle room in it today,” Rala said, casually leaning back on one arm and raising the others. “I really don’t mind lending a hand or three.”
"As they say, many hands make light work, and with an extra four, Ah suppose we could make it even faster." Jenna broke a smile to Rala with that little bit of humor, "Then maybe Ah could join you for something to drink... Lemonade sound good?"
Rala got to her feet and held out a hand to help Jenna up, smiling. “Sounds good.”
