"USS-Grail : They Were Expendable"

'Misinformation' By Lt. Cara Hatcher

Chief Tactical Officer

Lieutenant Cara Hatcher lifted her nose from the Tactical console when she heard the doors of the Captain's ready room open. A woman, a Lieutenant jg, stepped out.

"Well, Cara thought. My turn I suppose." She walked toward the door of the Captain's refuge. It was not the Captain, though, she was about to meet. It was the XO, Epic Terrakian. Her mother had warned her a bit about him. Kristen Hatcher, powerful Starfleet Admiral, didn't know the man personally, but it seemed like his reputation preceded him. Though Kristen did not want her daughter to know everything about him right from the beginning – that would rule out the fun of a new assignment, as 'fatal' as this new one was -, she had the decency to warn her about his origins. Epic Terrakian was a Betazoid.

Cara pushed back every single trace of emotion she had and buried them into the darkest, deepest corner of her soul. She knew well that those emotions could compromise her if she was not careful. In fact they had done so her whole life. And around a Betazoid, one was never too careful. When she felt perfectly focused and cool, she rang the door chime.

First thing that struck Cara when she entered the Captain's ready room, was the *eyes* of Commander Terrakian. They were... blue. Almost as striking as her own, but darker. Nothing like the chocolate, bottomless eyes of a Betazoid she had expected to meet. She shrugged inwardly, her inner shields dropping almost instantly.

"Mother must have been mistaken." Convinced that the man facing her was, after all, not a Betazoid, she regained much of her usual self-confidence, and felt her emotions rush back to the surface. She did nothing to stop that, but blocked them at the frontier of her skeleton, as she always did.

Commander Terrakian was sitting behind his desk, but she knew that once he stood, her head would probably not reach his shoulder's level. She had gotten used to that, and that was not at all a matter of concern to her. He would soon learn that she was a sleeping volcano just about to erupt at the less expectable moment; and that, somewhat, had always helped her in earning some respect from her peers and superiors. Some.

Cara swept the room with her piercing eyes, spotting the objects that could reveal, eventually, of interest to her. This was an instinct she had developed in her childhood, that came from those years when she had to rob to survive. An instinct that had never left her since. Fortunately, or not...

For a few long seconds, she observed the room. And the Commander observed her. Finally, Cara granted him her full attention. She did not smile. She did not wince. She simply stood there, and awaited for him to say something.

He must have felt her snapping to attention for he started immediately. "Lieutenant Hatcher, he said. Why don't we start this interview with you telling me a little about yourself. Afterward, we can trade 'war stories'. I was a Tactical Officer for most of my career."

*/What does he need to know about me, she thought with a bit of frustration. I'd bet he has already gone through all of my Starfleet records. I'd bet that he even knows about how I was able to join Starfleet, and about my years at the penal colony./*

"I have a boring existence, she replied. I am an adopted child. I don't know whether my biological parents are alive or not, and frankly I don't give a damn about it. I joined Starfleet Academy early, at the age of 14. That made me the perfect target for the other kids to laugh at. I came out as an Ensign and Tactical Officer 4 years later. The rest is the normal path of a Starfleet Officer..." She carefully avoided the matter of her detention, just in case he didn't know. "A few boring missions, a few exciting ones... and I dug my way to the lieutenantship. As for my 'war stories', I'm afraid they would be a disappointment to you. There's really nothing worth mentioning."

*/Unless you want me to tell you about my 'personal' war stories and the noses I broke, that is./*, she added for herself.

Epic Terrakian had his gaze fixed on her the whole time she spoke. He certainly was trying to intimidate her somewhat. It wouldn't work. Cara knew she looked like a child, and several senior officers had already tried this little intimidation trick on her in her previous assignments. One of them was dead now. But it was his fault, entirely. He was the one who pushed her too far. She was blaming him, also, for having been assigned to this ship. Too bad that she could not make him pay for this one. What needed to be done, had already been done.

Cara Hatcher focused back on the Commander. She remained silent, expecting him either to talk, or to dismiss her.