Lieutenant Brian James stood before his staff, the gaggle of scientists arrayed in a haphazard fashion as was the norm for such large meetings of so many learned folk. He’d chosen to hold the meeting during what amounted to shift change for the department, even if the concept was something loose given how independent most of the projects and teams were from one another. His choice was based mainly in getting the highest number of elusive scientist together in one place with the least amount of herding.

“I know a few of you have seen the scans we conducted over the last six hours, but most of you will be hearing this for the first time. We’ve discovered a pre-warp civilization,” James began, his words prompting more than a few excited conversations to break out among the members of departments that specialized in various aspects of anthropology and culturally oriented disciplines, “Before everyone jumps to start working, there’s a very large ‘but’ that you’re going to want to hear first.” The crowd quieted down quickly, curious and questioning gazes assaulting the department head. “Audio transmissions from the surface have suggested, and our scans of the planet have corroborated it at least in part, that this particular civilization has bombed itself into oblivion using nuclear weapons. The initial readings put the radiation levels at just shy of double the worst nuclear events on Earth during the twenty-first century. And to make matters even more complicated, there is no evidence that this civilization achieved warp capable flight, making contact with any survivors a violation of the Prime Directive.”

Another wave of conversation assailed the large meeting area, but this time it was far less excited. Brian couldn’t help but sympathize with the fragments of conversation he could discern through the din, but he knew just as well as everyone else assembled that the Prime Directive was there for a reason and it wasn’t theirs to decide otherwise, as unfortunate as things were.

“I’m going to need everyone to prioritize a full cataloguing of the planet, everything we can get from orbital scans we need to make sure we capture before the Captain has us move on. We’re fighting against the clock, we’re fighting against the rampant radiation contaminating everything down there, and we’re going to have to do it without being able to bring anything up from the surface,” the Lieutenant explained.

“We can’t collect artifacts?” one of the anthropologist called out, somewhat upset by his statement.

Brian shook his head in the negative, “The Captain doesn’t want anything brought aboard without his expressed authorization. You can tag things you think might be important to bring up as you conduct your scans, but no one brings so much as an air particle aboard unless Captain Gar’rath gives the order personally.”

It was obvious by the tone the pockets of conversation began to take that no one was very happy with the order. Lt. James himself wasn’t thrilled with it either, given that they were more than adequately equipped to handle irradiated objects without risking the ship and crew. He was not, however, inclined to circumvent the order simply because he didn’t agree with it.

“How long to you think we’ll remain in orbit?” another scientist asked.

“Probably not more than a week. This was a spontaneous detour as it stands, and a grim one now that we’re here. I can’t really foresee the Captain wanting to linger longer than is absolutely necessary for us to perform an initial catalogue of this planet’s… former… inhabitants. We’ll have to gather what we can, and leave it to future missions in this sector to sort the piece that are left once we leave.”

Again, the response was not met with a great deal of enthusiasm, but given what they were being asked to do, it was probably as much or even more time than they might have had in any other circumstance. When the pockets of conversation thinned out to a whisper, Lt. James bade the teams to set to work on their task. The occupants of the space filled out until only Brian and his Deputy were left behind.

“Pretty morbid stuff…” Lieutenant Lillian Grant muttered as she came up to her superior.

“It really is…” James nodded sadly, “I had to watch it happen. Even heard some of the transmissions after Ensign Zinith finished translating them. Took everything I had not to start crying for all the poor people caught up in some foolish fight they probably never asked for.”

“I can’t even imagine,” Lily said softly as she gave the man’s arm a compassionate squeeze.

Brian gave her hand a firm pat before looking up toward the ceiling, “I know it was probably worse for Thalia. Not just because this is probably her first foray into a first contact situation. She had to listen to each and every message, every cry for help… all the angry voices cursing their attackers… all of it.”

Grant let out a sympathetic sigh, “I don’t think I could have held it together. Is she going to be alright?”

“The Captain relieved her of duty, and probably told her to seek out a counselor… though I don’t know that for a fact. I saw Commander Sorreth take her off the duty rotation for the next few days too, so I’m hoping she’s being taken care of in all the ways she needs,” Brian replied, a tense smile forming on his lips.

“Probably. I’ve never known a Vulcan to remove someone from a roster just for the fun of it.”

“I haven’t known Commander Sorreth all that long, but I feel like he can be considerate when he needs to be, even if doesn’t seem logical to do so,” Lt. James shrugged, “The other side of that could be that he was told to do it by the XO. Wouldn’t put it past Commander Peters to simply make a compassionate call and cut out the uncertainty.”

“She does strike me as the sympathetic type. But you can’t rule out it came from above them too. Khar has told me on a number of occasions that our Captain isn’t like most Gorn he’s ever seen or heard about. Even went so far as to say he’d share a drink with the Captain if he ever asked, and he doesn’t offer that for just anyone,” Lily said with a smirk.

Brian couldn’t help but chuckle, “I forget sometimes that the two of you are dating, with how secretive he is about his personal life. And from what I know of the man, that’s not some idle compliment. Kind of strange how different people have such wildly different views of the same person.”

“It helps that the Captain used to be a Security Officer, I think. They have a lot of common experiences and a similar mindset when it comes to their work. Probably something to do with that warrior’s code Khar likes to brag about all the time.”

“Yeah, that probably helps. I can usually tell when the Captain starts to lose interest in what I’m saying, he gets the same look in his eyes that my mother does when I ramble on about something overly technical and she’s trying to be polite but can’t understand anything I’m saying other than the fact that I’m saying it in Federation Standard,” James explained with a sigh.

“Khar does that sometimes too,” Lily giggled, “But I don’t love him any less because he doesn’t get excited about gravimetric particle density figures or subspace refractory models. I think I actually like that he doesn’t get it. I have my hobbies, he has his, and we can still be together without having ‘get’ everything the other likes to be happy.”

Brian smiled at his colleague, “It’s great that you two have that. Now… what say we get to work? I doubt I’m going to get much sleep tonight, so I might as well do some scans and lighten the load on the others a bit.”

“Sure, but don’t stay up all night, Brian. I don’t want you dragging yourself in tomorrow halfway through the duty day looking slovenly in front of our people. It’s hard enough to get some of them to stick to a normal schedule as it is without you giving them an excuse to slip into ‘mad scientist’ mode,” Grant chided as the two of them headed for their respective offices.