Post by Vice Admiral Nyoko Honda on Aug 15, 2014 2:31:00 GMT -5
Jackson was laying on his back in junction tube 27 bravo along the starboard rear strut of the Ayanami. He had taken the more remote repair jobs mostly to stay out of Commander Depaul’s way of repair efforts. It was also for his own benefit as these areas of the ship offered the most solitary position one can find. He had been working on the EPS Relay in this section that provided power to the starboard nacelle. His troubleshooting had lead him to believe this was the primary point of failure for power in this section of the ship. His suspicious were confirmed when he finally saw he junction box. It had become a glob of melted glass, and plastic polymers.
“Best get to replacing it” he said as he slipped himself under the EPS conduit that came through the bulkhead and fed into the burned out box.
Nyoko after finding some down time decided to seek Jackson out. All the damage control efforts were being managed by Anja and other members of the crew. The debriefings wouldn’t likely start for another 10 or 15 hours and certainly not before things on the Ayanami were final secured. So she had some free time.
Using the ship’s computers she located Jaxs and sought him out. When she arrived in the junction she had seen his tools laid out neatly while he worked under the conduit. As she saw this she reached down to take the spanner from the line of tools. Then when he went too switch tools the spanner wasn’t there.
“Where in the hell?” Jackson asked himself having hard time explain the missing tool. “Hanson you in here?” He called down the shaft.
Jackson received soft female chuckled as response and she bent down peering under the conduit to offer him the coupler spanner tool.
“Commander.” She said in a friendly tone much warmer then any official military acknowledgement.
Jackson laughed to himself. “Should you be, you know doing admirally things?”
“Perks of command,” She replayed with sheeply smile.
“Besides, I don't have power in my quarters.” She made herself comfortable by taking a seat next to him tucking her legs behind her as she sat up.
“Yeah I am working on that.” He responded with a smile knowing that all this work was going for the benefit of his girlfriend and her crew which made him feel good.
“You really did number on this one.” He commented looking at damaged in front of him. “But that engineer of yours and his teams are on it. I figured I’d stay out of his way.”
Nyoko nodded understanding that engineers were territorial.
“Should have seen what I did to the last Ayanami.” She said in reflection.
“She was one warp flight away from slamming shut on us like book.” She started explained as she touched the bulkhead in front of tenderly. As if the Ayanami was alive and needed a tender touch. Jackson watched her every motion. How could he not? He thought quietly to himself. Even in that uniform she was attractive.
“Old Age.” Nyoko explained the reasoning why the old Ayanami was no more.
“This one has a lot of light years left in her.” Jackson offered a lighter response unsure how emotional this topic was for her. As he did he noticed the brace on her wrist and quietly concluded she must have visited sickbay already.
“How is your hand?” He asked.
“Ah, I broke it, but it will mend.” She looked at her wrist and then back to Jackson and with small embarrassed grin she continued. “Rookie mistake should have rolled instead of trying to save myself.”
“You broke your ship and she broke your hand. I guess that makes sense.” He said teasing her.
Nyoko remained stoically as she always did. That command presence about her all the time resolute in the knowledge that she was distinguished hero and yet had that humbling mannerisms of a Japanese woman.
“This one was a scary one” She reflected out loud for him to hear.
“Yeah Earth was pretty bad too, lost a lot ships.” Jackson empathized as he shared some of his own personal details. “Including the Nimitz.”
“I haven’t even dove into the-“ she stopped when she heard the Nimtiz was destroyed. It was news she was certainly unprepared for. Her heart skipped a beat and she wanted to know more. Was Hann dead? Was he injured? How did the ship go down? These were all the questions that skipped to her mind.
“The saucer section was still intact as was the bridge, but the star drive section was destroyed. I’m sure Captain Hann probably likes that we used his severed Nacelle as a projectile to take down the super dreadnought.” Jackson continued to explain with a short laugh at the crazy stunt his crew came up with.
Nyoko offered soft smile.
“I read the report” She commented.
“I was impressed to hear the valor your crew produced today.” Nyoko shared her admiration for Jackson and his achievements. Yet her thoughts quietly fixed on Hann now. She wondered how he was feeling. The Nimitz was his ship for more than a decade and for it to go down it must have been tough blow to him. Yet it was only a starship she considered silently only half paying attention to Jackson at this point.
“Yeah but she gave more than she got. We probably wouldn't have made it through the beginning without her.” Jackson considered the details. “It was long fight before Hyperion pulled our asses out of the fire.”
“I am sure Captain Hann is safe. It’s just this military engagement has touched us all in some way.” She offered some measurement of comfort if not for Jackson but for herself.
“I have to admit,” Jackson started and that was when Nyoko made eye contact with him again giving the engineer her complete attention. “I thought we were dead.”
“And all I could think about was that Bren would die with me, and I wouldn’t get to see you ever again.” He said sadly trying to consolidate the anxiety left behind from the fear.
“War has a way of giving us a reality check.” Nyoko commented but was cut off with a curt response from Jackson.
“War is a line in the sand for the sake of political gains. This was a terrorist attack.” He snapped at her.
Nyoko was surprised at the anger. She wasn’t sure what she said or did to annoy him and in an effort to reconcile the misunderstanding she tried to explain herself more clearly.
“I used the word too loosely.” She said apologetically. “I mean battle.”
Jackson realized his snap had startled Nyoko. The miss guided anger shot at her was unfair. It wasn’t her fault and he know that.
"I am sorry.” He apologized. “I shouldn’t have snapped. I am not angry with you. It’s just all this death.”
Nyoko empathized quietly. The battle was unfortunate. It had resulted with ten’s thousands dead on both sides of the attack
“It’s beyond our power. We live in a very finite moment of life,” she offered an explanation.
“Yeah, but it’s hard to forget.” Jackson responded.
“Makes you feel less human doesn’t it?” She asked curiously. “To forget that is.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I am an engineer and today I was forced to engineer the death of thousands. I don’t like that.” He said sitting down.
“I am not a soldier.” He commented.
Nyoko knew he was no solider or a warrior or a harden battle commander. He was human. A man filled with idealistically ideals that defined what Starfleet was supposed to be about. She found that attractive. She found it so attractive that for moment when she was among his company she could forget about Hann or her uniform for that matter. Jackson had this magical way of making her feel like a person rather then solider.
She continues to listen to her boyfriend. While he explained the deeper details of how he weaponized slipstream drive to project an object into a target that was kilometers away, although it sounded all very impressive. Jackson was the architect of murder on a wide scale. Though was It truly Murder? The ideals were fundamentally debated. Nyoko as commander and admiral like any other of the brass would congratulate Jackson for his service. Though as a human being was this something to be proud about?
“I fear my solutions were just as insensitive. I made Nanite bomb from my XO’s blood.” She offered some of own shame that she was burdening.
“I told myself it was an acceptable measurement in the face of utter destruction.” Nyoko explained.
“What does that say about us?” Jackson asked rhetorically. “And this Uniform?”
Nyoko had no answers. In fact she couldn’t even disagree. All she could say that she was duty bound but that answer was empty.
“That our principles don’t matter when we faced death?” Jackson asked Nyoko for the answers now.
“It does make us seem monstrous does it not?” She had no choice but to play into his points. She didn’t
Want to feed him the Admirals line of strength, and honor and duty. Lecturing him with that nonsense would be unfair to him and their relationship.
“Maybe just not as evolved as we like to think we are,” he settled for a softer answer.
“It has been the price we’ve paid for survival since the Klingon War.” Nyoko admitted.
“But-“ Nyoko continued letting her thoughts weigh in for a moment.
“What choice is there when your asked, do you want to live? or do you want to die?” She rebutted with the classic argument of basic human instincts. It was a matter of life and death after all.
“Of course I want to live.” She added quietly with small pout.
“So did I. That isn’t’ what’s getting me.” He tried to clarify. “It’s the fact that I wanted them to die.”
“That’s because you’re angry,”
“Your damn right I am.” He said as he buried his face in his hands. He remained like that for while quietly crying to himself as the emotions overwhelmed him.
“Jackson-“ She said to get his attention but he remained firmly with his face in his hands.
“It’s because you’re not solider why I find our connection special. You remind me what it is to be a person.” She confessed to him placing her hand on his shoulder and then he looked up.
She saw the wetness in his eyes and she realized then he was crying.
“Hey-“
She said softly to him opening her arms and inviting him to come close and he did.
The two embraced one another in the small Jeffery’s intersection. She held his head in her shoulder and rubbed his back giving him all her comforting of a loving woman. Then he leaned upward and immediately she shut her eyes as their lips met. The kiss wasn’t one of passion but one of tenderness. It was full of meaning and emotional feeling. It almost made her wonder if Jackson was starting to fall in love with her but that was a question for another day.
“The worst of all this was Bren had to see this. She had to see me kill-“ Nyoko shushed him.
“It was an extreme situation Jackson.” Nyoko tried to remind him the facts.
“But if I can’t protect her from the realites of this world what good would I have been to Nerys?” Jax responded.
“It’s not who you are- it’s what you had to do. These are challenges of every parent.” She started to set him straight now. She went to explain that every parent worth anything has gone on to ask themselves what they’re worth was in the face of protecting their children. Nyoko considered it to be a loaded question.
“It’s not your job to protect them.” She said softly peeling away slightly so he can see her face.
“It’s your job to tech them to understand. To think for themselves and to make decisions based on values that you and she can be proud of,” Nyoko outlined her understand of being a parent.
Jackson remained there silent for long moment. It made sense to him. Nothing his grandparents ever did could have protected him from the pains he had to go through. That was fact. Everything that was painful in life was a lesson learned the hard way and every challenge met was always considered with the values that he had been taught all his life. The only power his grandparents truly had was that they taught him a set of values to stick too.
“You're right.” He said looking at her eastern face. He considered it among the most beautiful things he’s known. It was so different then what he was used too. That hair was so straight, thick and black as well. It beauty that captivated him over and over and the best was she understood him and the shared something personal.
“My emotions are getting the better of me” He said defensively.
“You don’t owe me any explanations Jackson.” She responded as she pulled him closer and he nuzzled into her neck.
As they found another moment of piece kanoodling in the jeffries tub intersection she whispered something softly in Japanese. “daisuki desu Jackson-san.”
(I like you very much).
When the peeled apart. He looked at her curiously for an explanation to the soft Japanese words. He wondered if it was I love you in Japanese. Then again that wasn’t exactly Nyoko’s style.
“I think you are going to have to teach me Japanese.” He offered a as a solution to not understanding her words.
“It was an endearment.” She offered as an explanation.
“Well we have ship I need to fix, unless you’re planning on staying in my quarters tonight?” He offered.
“I would very much a love wet shower. Maybe we can get power restored before we talk about our plans tonight?” She offered a plan.
Then he nodded with smile. “Grab spanner and let’s get to it.”
Then the two work. Making an effort to restore power the deck where her room was for the sake of a wet shower.
“Best get to replacing it” he said as he slipped himself under the EPS conduit that came through the bulkhead and fed into the burned out box.
Nyoko after finding some down time decided to seek Jackson out. All the damage control efforts were being managed by Anja and other members of the crew. The debriefings wouldn’t likely start for another 10 or 15 hours and certainly not before things on the Ayanami were final secured. So she had some free time.
Using the ship’s computers she located Jaxs and sought him out. When she arrived in the junction she had seen his tools laid out neatly while he worked under the conduit. As she saw this she reached down to take the spanner from the line of tools. Then when he went too switch tools the spanner wasn’t there.
“Where in the hell?” Jackson asked himself having hard time explain the missing tool. “Hanson you in here?” He called down the shaft.
Jackson received soft female chuckled as response and she bent down peering under the conduit to offer him the coupler spanner tool.
“Commander.” She said in a friendly tone much warmer then any official military acknowledgement.
Jackson laughed to himself. “Should you be, you know doing admirally things?”
“Perks of command,” She replayed with sheeply smile.
“Besides, I don't have power in my quarters.” She made herself comfortable by taking a seat next to him tucking her legs behind her as she sat up.
“Yeah I am working on that.” He responded with a smile knowing that all this work was going for the benefit of his girlfriend and her crew which made him feel good.
“You really did number on this one.” He commented looking at damaged in front of him. “But that engineer of yours and his teams are on it. I figured I’d stay out of his way.”
Nyoko nodded understanding that engineers were territorial.
“Should have seen what I did to the last Ayanami.” She said in reflection.
“She was one warp flight away from slamming shut on us like book.” She started explained as she touched the bulkhead in front of tenderly. As if the Ayanami was alive and needed a tender touch. Jackson watched her every motion. How could he not? He thought quietly to himself. Even in that uniform she was attractive.
“Old Age.” Nyoko explained the reasoning why the old Ayanami was no more.
“This one has a lot of light years left in her.” Jackson offered a lighter response unsure how emotional this topic was for her. As he did he noticed the brace on her wrist and quietly concluded she must have visited sickbay already.
“How is your hand?” He asked.
“Ah, I broke it, but it will mend.” She looked at her wrist and then back to Jackson and with small embarrassed grin she continued. “Rookie mistake should have rolled instead of trying to save myself.”
“You broke your ship and she broke your hand. I guess that makes sense.” He said teasing her.
Nyoko remained stoically as she always did. That command presence about her all the time resolute in the knowledge that she was distinguished hero and yet had that humbling mannerisms of a Japanese woman.
“This one was a scary one” She reflected out loud for him to hear.
“Yeah Earth was pretty bad too, lost a lot ships.” Jackson empathized as he shared some of his own personal details. “Including the Nimitz.”
“I haven’t even dove into the-“ she stopped when she heard the Nimtiz was destroyed. It was news she was certainly unprepared for. Her heart skipped a beat and she wanted to know more. Was Hann dead? Was he injured? How did the ship go down? These were all the questions that skipped to her mind.
“The saucer section was still intact as was the bridge, but the star drive section was destroyed. I’m sure Captain Hann probably likes that we used his severed Nacelle as a projectile to take down the super dreadnought.” Jackson continued to explain with a short laugh at the crazy stunt his crew came up with.
Nyoko offered soft smile.
“I read the report” She commented.
“I was impressed to hear the valor your crew produced today.” Nyoko shared her admiration for Jackson and his achievements. Yet her thoughts quietly fixed on Hann now. She wondered how he was feeling. The Nimitz was his ship for more than a decade and for it to go down it must have been tough blow to him. Yet it was only a starship she considered silently only half paying attention to Jackson at this point.
“Yeah but she gave more than she got. We probably wouldn't have made it through the beginning without her.” Jackson considered the details. “It was long fight before Hyperion pulled our asses out of the fire.”
“I am sure Captain Hann is safe. It’s just this military engagement has touched us all in some way.” She offered some measurement of comfort if not for Jackson but for herself.
“I have to admit,” Jackson started and that was when Nyoko made eye contact with him again giving the engineer her complete attention. “I thought we were dead.”
“And all I could think about was that Bren would die with me, and I wouldn’t get to see you ever again.” He said sadly trying to consolidate the anxiety left behind from the fear.
“War has a way of giving us a reality check.” Nyoko commented but was cut off with a curt response from Jackson.
“War is a line in the sand for the sake of political gains. This was a terrorist attack.” He snapped at her.
Nyoko was surprised at the anger. She wasn’t sure what she said or did to annoy him and in an effort to reconcile the misunderstanding she tried to explain herself more clearly.
“I used the word too loosely.” She said apologetically. “I mean battle.”
Jackson realized his snap had startled Nyoko. The miss guided anger shot at her was unfair. It wasn’t her fault and he know that.
"I am sorry.” He apologized. “I shouldn’t have snapped. I am not angry with you. It’s just all this death.”
Nyoko empathized quietly. The battle was unfortunate. It had resulted with ten’s thousands dead on both sides of the attack
“It’s beyond our power. We live in a very finite moment of life,” she offered an explanation.
“Yeah, but it’s hard to forget.” Jackson responded.
“Makes you feel less human doesn’t it?” She asked curiously. “To forget that is.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I am an engineer and today I was forced to engineer the death of thousands. I don’t like that.” He said sitting down.
“I am not a soldier.” He commented.
Nyoko knew he was no solider or a warrior or a harden battle commander. He was human. A man filled with idealistically ideals that defined what Starfleet was supposed to be about. She found that attractive. She found it so attractive that for moment when she was among his company she could forget about Hann or her uniform for that matter. Jackson had this magical way of making her feel like a person rather then solider.
She continues to listen to her boyfriend. While he explained the deeper details of how he weaponized slipstream drive to project an object into a target that was kilometers away, although it sounded all very impressive. Jackson was the architect of murder on a wide scale. Though was It truly Murder? The ideals were fundamentally debated. Nyoko as commander and admiral like any other of the brass would congratulate Jackson for his service. Though as a human being was this something to be proud about?
“I fear my solutions were just as insensitive. I made Nanite bomb from my XO’s blood.” She offered some of own shame that she was burdening.
“I told myself it was an acceptable measurement in the face of utter destruction.” Nyoko explained.
“What does that say about us?” Jackson asked rhetorically. “And this Uniform?”
Nyoko had no answers. In fact she couldn’t even disagree. All she could say that she was duty bound but that answer was empty.
“That our principles don’t matter when we faced death?” Jackson asked Nyoko for the answers now.
“It does make us seem monstrous does it not?” She had no choice but to play into his points. She didn’t
Want to feed him the Admirals line of strength, and honor and duty. Lecturing him with that nonsense would be unfair to him and their relationship.
“Maybe just not as evolved as we like to think we are,” he settled for a softer answer.
“It has been the price we’ve paid for survival since the Klingon War.” Nyoko admitted.
“But-“ Nyoko continued letting her thoughts weigh in for a moment.
“What choice is there when your asked, do you want to live? or do you want to die?” She rebutted with the classic argument of basic human instincts. It was a matter of life and death after all.
“Of course I want to live.” She added quietly with small pout.
“So did I. That isn’t’ what’s getting me.” He tried to clarify. “It’s the fact that I wanted them to die.”
“That’s because you’re angry,”
“Your damn right I am.” He said as he buried his face in his hands. He remained like that for while quietly crying to himself as the emotions overwhelmed him.
“Jackson-“ She said to get his attention but he remained firmly with his face in his hands.
“It’s because you’re not solider why I find our connection special. You remind me what it is to be a person.” She confessed to him placing her hand on his shoulder and then he looked up.
She saw the wetness in his eyes and she realized then he was crying.
“Hey-“
She said softly to him opening her arms and inviting him to come close and he did.
The two embraced one another in the small Jeffery’s intersection. She held his head in her shoulder and rubbed his back giving him all her comforting of a loving woman. Then he leaned upward and immediately she shut her eyes as their lips met. The kiss wasn’t one of passion but one of tenderness. It was full of meaning and emotional feeling. It almost made her wonder if Jackson was starting to fall in love with her but that was a question for another day.
“The worst of all this was Bren had to see this. She had to see me kill-“ Nyoko shushed him.
“It was an extreme situation Jackson.” Nyoko tried to remind him the facts.
“But if I can’t protect her from the realites of this world what good would I have been to Nerys?” Jax responded.
“It’s not who you are- it’s what you had to do. These are challenges of every parent.” She started to set him straight now. She went to explain that every parent worth anything has gone on to ask themselves what they’re worth was in the face of protecting their children. Nyoko considered it to be a loaded question.
“It’s not your job to protect them.” She said softly peeling away slightly so he can see her face.
“It’s your job to tech them to understand. To think for themselves and to make decisions based on values that you and she can be proud of,” Nyoko outlined her understand of being a parent.
Jackson remained there silent for long moment. It made sense to him. Nothing his grandparents ever did could have protected him from the pains he had to go through. That was fact. Everything that was painful in life was a lesson learned the hard way and every challenge met was always considered with the values that he had been taught all his life. The only power his grandparents truly had was that they taught him a set of values to stick too.
“You're right.” He said looking at her eastern face. He considered it among the most beautiful things he’s known. It was so different then what he was used too. That hair was so straight, thick and black as well. It beauty that captivated him over and over and the best was she understood him and the shared something personal.
“My emotions are getting the better of me” He said defensively.
“You don’t owe me any explanations Jackson.” She responded as she pulled him closer and he nuzzled into her neck.
As they found another moment of piece kanoodling in the jeffries tub intersection she whispered something softly in Japanese. “daisuki desu Jackson-san.”
(I like you very much).
When the peeled apart. He looked at her curiously for an explanation to the soft Japanese words. He wondered if it was I love you in Japanese. Then again that wasn’t exactly Nyoko’s style.
“I think you are going to have to teach me Japanese.” He offered a as a solution to not understanding her words.
“It was an endearment.” She offered as an explanation.
“Well we have ship I need to fix, unless you’re planning on staying in my quarters tonight?” He offered.
“I would very much a love wet shower. Maybe we can get power restored before we talk about our plans tonight?” She offered a plan.
Then he nodded with smile. “Grab spanner and let’s get to it.”
Then the two work. Making an effort to restore power the deck where her room was for the sake of a wet shower.