Subject: Grail: The Great Brightness - This House Divided

`This House Divided'

...we live inside it,

and Hates hiding place is behind our doors

On fitful nights, hear it walk the floor

and hear it rave,

as it moans and drags along its ball and chain...

10,000 Maniacs- From "Our Time in Eden"

(Ok. So it ain't as sophisticated as Jessica-Lynnes tastes, but I like

it [wink at Jessica-Lynne])

<Stardate: 47307.30- 10:09>

Logan Castle stood in the quiet of his office and tried to make

sense out of the last hour. It wasn't that he disagreed with the

Captains philosophy on how to proceed from this day forward. Actually,

there was a naive nobility in the Betazoids intentions that Castle

reponded well to. But it was the way he said it that got everyone out of

their chairs.

`To Hell with the Prime Directive'.

Definitely not the thing to say in that particular crowd. Castle

himself was unaffected by the proclamation. The Prime Directive was an

order that had been violated repeatedly over the centuries since its

inception. Hell, Starfleet itself barely followed its spirit. If they

did honor their own rules, Starfleet Intelligence and the IMS would have

been prosecuted into extinction before it was even really created.

But there were some, like Athayla Anne Brinn, who took their oaths

very seriously. There were some, though, whose reactions he would not

have expected. Like DeMontigny and Brennan. That spunky little Irish

girl really came out of the chute on fire. Castle thought for sure that

the Captain was going to crush her, or suck her blood, or zap her, or

whatever the hell else he was rumored to be capable of.

But he kept it in his pants, so to speak. And his rage was

powerful. Castle felt it like heat. If the Captain had flipped at that

moment, Logan was prepared to stop the man, but, fortunately, it hadn't

come to that. Besides, Comm. Hargen cut that one off at the pass.

Weird one, that Janice Hargen. Her `folder' read like she would be

the first to string up a superior officer, but she seemd the only real

ally Terrakian had. Of course, the `schoolgirl' looks she always seemed

to favor the Captain with might have had something to do with it. Castle

shrugged. He had always assumed that Terrakian and Arda were sort of a

`thing', what with the whole `baby' situation. But there definitely

seemed to be something passing between the Captain and the Chief

Engineer.

Castle shrugged. He had certainly set his pole on more than one

stream at a time in his life, but Terrakian didn't seem the type. If

anything, he considered the Captain almost non-sexual. Whatever. Where

he dipped his pen had little bearing on the problem.

And Castle saw a problem.

Too many people, too many `command' people, had spoken out against

him. What did that mean ultimately? He couldn't guess at the moment. It

was still too fresh. But he had to give it serious thought. The security

of this ship required that he anticipate problems like this. Time would

tell.

But no matter what developed, Castle still thought that Terrakian

was a good man. A good man who was put in charge of the `rotten apples'.

And he had never seen a good apple bring out the shine in a barrel full

of rotten ones. Eventually, the good apple bruised and rotted too.

It was beyond his scope at this point. All he could do was take it

one day at a time right now. And he had work to do. He tapped his

communicator.

"Beta Shift. Report to the Security Briefing Room. En. Tifa Charr,

if you're not busy, I'd like to see you in my office immediately...."

<Tifa Reply>

{OOC: It all smells like smoke and shit, but I'm back in my place. I

couldn't believe all the messages waiting for me. Hope noone missed me

too bad. `Kurt who?' :)

Lt. Logan Castle

Chief Security Officer, USS Grail

theShadowKnight@webtv.net