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Graham reaches down to take Marala's hand.
"That's very kind of you, Marala." He takes a long breath. "Aside from anything else, I think she feels---embarrassed about her, ah, medical condition's impact on the mission."
He shakes his head. "Which she shouldn't, but I think she does. And an, ah audience might make her feel worse. Or at least less likely to be open to hearing otherwise."
He gives her hand another squeeze. "I won't be long."
Dr. Villa frowns and tells Onn, "I'm sorry, but I'm not going to promise to wake you if there's a change in Mr. Rangin's status. You need your rest. Whatever happens, it can wait until you wake up. You're not going to be getting out of bed and charging off to see him if something should happen, are you, Lieutenant?" It seems a rhetorical question. She makes sure Onn has enough blankets before leaving. Onn doesn't have a hand communicator in the room, but there is a standard small ship's comm panel on the bulkhead within easy reach.
Rawlings says, "You haven't been in the pool yet? Deck 8. Definitely worth a visit. Let me know - I'll show you sometime, and we can take a swim." He smiles when he hears Dr. Mäkeläinen's explanation of the physician's musical instrument of choice, and winks at Kylah. "Yes, I think we all know what a violin is, Doc."
Marala kisses her husband. "Of course. Take your time." She finds a chair in the Sickbay waiting room.
Graham is directed by a nurse to Onn's room. Dr. Villa is just coming out as he approaches.
"Ah hey--I mean, excuse me, doctor," Graham says. "I wanted to check in on Ni- ah, Lt. Onn." He lowers his voice. "I hope we made it back in time so there's no lasting harm."
Dr. Villa smiles. "Hello, Mr. Graham. Yes, she's doing relatively well already, and I have no doubt she'll make a full recovery. Shall I ask if she'd like any visitors?"
Graham nods and forces a smile back. "Sure, I'd be much obliged if you'd let her know I'm here."
Disappointed but not surprised that Villa won't keep her updated on Rangin's condition, Nia pulls the extra blanket over her shoulders and escapes the worry and weariness by shutting her eyes.
Graham and Onn have a good visit (which they can write about as a flashback, if they wish).
Onn learns the next morning, after she awakes, that Rangin's situation is stable but unchanged. Dr. Villa also tells her that the Captain dropped by to visit Onn a few hours after Graham was there, but insisted on not waking her.
You each get a good night's sleep and have a relatively quiet morning back on duty: Graham on Security patrol in the secondary hull, Kylah on Comms duty on the Bridge, and Dr. Mäkeläinen on Sickbay rounds, including checking on Lt. Onn.
You each make your way to Conference Room 1 at 1230 for debriefing and lunch. The Captain and First Officer are already there. Dr. Mäkeläinen accompanies Onn, who Dr. Villa allows out of bed for the debriefing with strict orders that she is to return to Sickbay if she feels at all fatigued or stressed.
"I've read your After-Mission Reports; thank you for them," the Captain says after you've selected food and drink from the bulkhead food dispenser and taken your seats. "Anything anyone wishes to add? Any points that deserve discussion here?"
Capt. Singh is having a fruit and cheese assortment, and a glass of ice water; Cmdr. Vargas has a roast beef sandwich and a large mug of coffee.
Graham has been poking at a shepherd's pie, but at the captain's comment he stands. He pulls the bottom of his uniform shirt down and tight and clears his throat.
"I. ah, would like to express my sincere gratitude for, uh, let me be blunt, saving our bacon, to you, Captain, and Yorktown's crew." He nods and then adds, "And I would like for formally nominate Ens. Kylah for a commendation for quick thinking and innovation that made it possible."
He clears his throat again. "With that said, I would also like to claim full and entire responsibility for all failures of protocol and procedure, including failure to secure the shuttle, failure to investigate Mr. Ragin's possibly homicidal incident, and any occurrences on the Uwat ship. As the senior Security officer present, I made judgment calls about life and safety, and I would accept no opposition, regardless of formal rank or other mission responsibilities. I would like to note good counsel from the doctor and Lt. Onn, but I claim all failures as mine and mine alone." He nods. "Ma'am, sir."
The Doctor was glad to see Lt. Onn on her feet, and told her so.
Dr. Mäkeläinen helps himself to a coffee and a dressed-up bagel for lunch, but he pays full attention once the discussion starts and does not eat while the Captain or the others are speaking.
When it is his turn, he says, "As eager as our officer is to fall on his sword, I must take equal responsibility. Had I problems with any judgement calls, I would have spoken up at the time. At no time did I feel pressured to stifle my opinions or that our orders were jeopardizing anyone's health and safety.
"Concerning the shuttle, it's arguably more secure, temporarily, at the bottom of a frozen lake in the middle of the forest than it would be in a more accessible location. It felt like we were pretty much out of control at that point, and I can only assume that in the hands of a lesser pilot we would have broken up in the atmosphere or augured into the terrain, not lucky enough to find that flat spot, let alone survive the landing."
Though normally ice water is Nia's favorite go-to drink, today her hands are curled around a mug of hot water with lemon. She's still not fully warm; even the normally pretty comfortable ship temperature isn't yet reaching the ice that feels like it's infecting her marrow. She plans to ask Dr. Villa for the warm lavage that, for whatever reason, the hospital on Ollos wouldn't perform.
Instead, she gets a splash of cold water when Booker suddenly takes full blame for everything that went down--and while she listens, mouth agape, Dr. Mäkeläinen follows through with more exoneration.
For the first time in days, Nia laughs without ending with a cough. Shaking her head, she lifts a hand to forestall Double-T from chiming in. "Uh, should I wait while you play the gallant knight next, or can we get to the facts?" Her eyes shift to Kylah, who's staring in dazed awe at Booker and the compliments bestowed upon her. Nia's not expecting any praise from that quarter, so she doesn't give the girl any time to respond. The question was rhetorical anyway.
She pushes herself up to her feet and turns to the Captain and Vargas, mostly the former. "Ma'am. As you know, Dr. Villa told me to hold off on writing my AMR yet. In the meantime you need to know just how full of bu--uh, tact--the others' reports are. I expect it from Lt. Graham. Taking phaser fire and sacrificing for others is kinda what he does. But Dr. Mäkeläinen? A straight-shooter, from all I've seen? That's a little surprising. Although maybe it shouldn't be. He spent most of the mission hoisting me on his shoulders and saving my ass."
Nia would flush, if her blood weren't busy trying to remember how to circulate. "Sorry, Captain; Commander. I don't mean to be vulgar. More than usual, anyway." She nods to the crew. "Point is, I put all of their lives in jeopardy. Not just by crashing the Tesla on that forsaken planet that hated Starfleet before we even arrived. But way before that, by not doing the pre-flight check myself once we were done with Hutchinson. Not taking enough reserve Bilitrium with me. Not being capable of figuring out what happened to the shuttle in the first place, much less fixing it. Choosing the wrong spot to land. And then every rushed action that put us all at risk because we had to find transport as fast as possible, that was solely 'cause of me. Lt. Rangin getting into some bar fight out of desperation to get us off planet--that was on me too. He shouldn't have been anywhere near that dive. None of them would've been except for my personal welfare.
"Along with not having time to perform due diligence on the Doregg, not figuring out we were on board a slave ship that contained multiple enemies, including the slavers, and a group of First Contact aliens who confronted me and Rangin after I mouthed off to them. And finally the bunch who I straight-up told we were Starfleet because I didn't have the brainpower to suss out that they weren't super-religious Vulcans but frickin' Romulans--Tal Shiyar, no less. I put us in such a dire situation that the Yorktown cut your mission short to fly to the rescue. Not securing the Tesla as ordered. Asking for her in the first place, just 'cause I wanted to take this insanely experimental, highly confidential and costly piece of tech out for a spin. Then destroying her."
Exhausted, Nia leans her hands on the table and stares down at her blank datapad. "I'm glad Lt. Cmdr. Cheverez isn't here. I'm not sure I could look him in the face. It's hard enough saying all this to you two. All our efforts, gone. Having to admit I abandoned our baby... something I never thought I'd do..."
She changes the subject, knowing she's in treacherous territory. "I'll say this much. I do agree with Lt. Graham's commendation rec for Ensign Kylah. I wish she hadn't had to drag you all away from Cavinre, but she did, somehow keeping our Starfleet status a secret, which is more than I did. But I'd extend the commendations to the entire crew for stepping up. The doc here...thanks to multiple injuries incurred by the crew, he was kept hopping, and all the while having to guess how to help my freakish biology. Not just physically, either. His bedside manner's impressive. He might give Dr. Noel a run for her money.
"Double-T--Ens. Rawlings--helped protect us from the Chalnoth even while, as far as I know, he'd barely recovered from a fracture post-Tesla crash. And Lt. Rangin... I don't even know exactly what happened to him on my watch. The one thing I claim success for is that for once, Ens. Kylah didn't require post-mission medical treatment. Far as I know." Again she laughs, this time ending with a slight wheeze, barely audible. "I'm saying 'far as I know' a lot. That's 'cause I spent much of the mission addle-brained or unconscious. I wasn't fit to command and I took too damn long to cede. Fortunately, Lt. Graham took on the responsibility, and did so as ably as he's run every mission I've known him to lead."
Nia lifts her gaze to meet his. "You did, Book," she mouths silently. And finally, she sinks back down to her seat. "Believe it or not," she says to Vargas and Singh, somewhat dryly, "that's the short version. The rest you'll get in my AMR, ASAP."
The Doctor forces himself to speak coolly despite the fact that his neck is on the line. "No plan survives contact with the enemy; we all know that. Can't rely on good luck, or any luck. I made sure we had adequate medical supplies, including a full standard emergency kit for a short mission. It was absolutely by the book; I checked. The fact remains, it was an unmitigated failure of the medical arm of this mission. I neglected to requisition reserve Bilitrium. I had talked to Lt. Onn earlier, but never asked for a precise inventory of how much she had on her. Hitting an unmarked quantum filament, or whatever it was, I don't know about that, but if the mission had not devolved into a medical emergency from the very beginning, things might have gone quite differently. That, at least, was one thing unequivocally under our control."